


Detour on the way Home

by karotsamused



Category: Sentou Yousei Yukikaze | Battle Fairy Snowstorm, Uta no Prince-sama
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Crack Treated Seriously, Crossover Pairings, M/M, Mentions of Substance Abuse, Pop Star Meets Spaceman, Sci-Fi Meets Muses, Science and Magic, Slow Build, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 09:26:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 35,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5622082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karotsamused/pseuds/karotsamused
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack has returned from Fairy.<br/>Rei is dead.<br/>Rei appears to Jack sometimes, anyway. In his hands, he cradles an orange fire.</p>
<p>(Subtitled: Sing Me The Song Of Your People<br/>Or: This is terribly self-indulgent and oh God it got so long)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Detour on the way Home

**Author's Note:**

> I thought about breaking this into chapters, but I just couldn't get up the gumption.   
> This was written entirely for my Bean, who was also the beta and sounding board and shoulder to cry on. Thank you, darling, since I think you're the only one who's gonna read it!
> 
> Also let's say Ren is post-canon, like twenty or so? Yeahhhh.........

Jack is outside the first time it happens, under the shade of his woodshop. He'd built one for himself after coming back to Earth in an attempt to make himself feel more at home. It keeps his hands busy, if nothing else.  
   
Everything he begins to carve turns, eventually, into a boomerang. His hands work without his conscious permission. His mind wanders.  
   
The first time it happens, he is putting the final coat of lacquer on his largest yet. He'd meant to start a table leg. It had curved on its own. He paints in smooth, even strokes. The lacquer bakes in the heat.  
   
In the reflection in the wood, he sees Rei.  
   
Startled, Jack turns, his heart in his throat. The space beside him is empty. He turns back to the boomerang, his eyes wide, his breath desperate.  
   
Rei shakes dust from his coat, coughs silently.   
   
Jack fights the urge to turn again. In the very edge of his peripheral vision, he can make out a shape beside him.  
   
Rei turns to him. His profile in the reflection is pale, a little gaunt.  
   
"I'm going crazy," breathes Jack.  
   
Rei shakes his head, his eyebrows drawing together.  
   
"You aren't here," Jack reasons.  
   
Rei shakes his head, aborts it, nods. He presses his hand to his forehead.  
   
"You died," offers Jack, his voice cracking.  
   
Rei presses his lips together. Again, he nods.  
   
Jack sags. "You died," he tells the reflection on the boomerang. His eyes cloud with hot, pricking tears. "You're dead."  
   
The faint blur in his peripheral vision fades out. Rei nods once more, and is gone.

 

* * *

  
  
Rei comes with no reason or warning. He is a flicker when Jack is heating beans for his dinner. He shakes stardust from his hair while Jack tests his newest carving in the wind. He catches the light of sunrise through an open window. He is a distortion in the bottom of Jack's bottle.  
   
Always, he is just out of sight. Always he is an afterimage, a peripheral silhouette. Jack learns not to turn toward him. Every time, the urge is nearly overwhelming.  
   
It's almost like having a companion again, despite the lack of conversation. Despite the way Jack is certain he's finally gone insane.  
   
He never bought a radio, a television, a computer, when he came back to Earth. He knew himself well enough to predict that he’d be unable to handle the news coverage of the wormhole closing above Antarctica. The list of casualties. The conspiracy theorists that had, somehow, convinced the world that the war that had claimed those casualties wasn’t real.  
  
Instead, he carves boomerangs and drinks until he can sleep without the sound of screaming metal in his head.   
  
He tends to rely on natural light, now, to better catch Rei when he comes. He tends to climb the stairs to his bed in the darkness, to navigate by touch, eyes wide and unseeing.   
   
This time, Rei is a pale pillar, translucent in the dim, waiting for him at the top of the stairs. He cradles a fire in his hands. It casts him in warm orange and yellow, makes him look more solid. Jack's fingers ache to reach for him. Rei holds the fire against his chest and bows his head to it, looking for all the world like he is soaking in the warmth.  
   
Jack's eyes betray him, turning toward Rei, but instead of disappearing into shadow, Rei remains.  
   
Jack croaks something that might be his name.  
   
Rei looks up and holds the naked flame out to Jack. His face is impassive as ever, all sharp features and dark lashes, a too-thin, willowy neck and lank hair.   
   
Against his spread palms, the fire dances but doesn't burn.  
   
Jack reaches out and runs his fingers through the air where the fire should be, feels nothing.   
   
Rei's expression softens. He mouths something, but Jack can't read his lips.  
   
The fire goes out.  
   
Jack is alone.  
   
In the darkness, Jack presses the heels of his hands to his eyes like he might erase the vision. White, warning flashes snap beneath his eyelids, but his memory is clear.  
   
The next morning, hung over, aching, he still remembers.  
  


* * *

  
  
Rei brings him fires.  
  
Always, they are a soft, warm orange, without the blue-white base of a flame struck from a match. Rei cradles them against his chest like they are fragile, though they anchor him more and more firmly in Jack’s home.  
  
Rei is there when Jack lays curled in his empty bathtub and shivering with fever. When Rei puts a hand to Jack’s forehead, Jack closes his eyes and lets the longing for his touch fool him into thinking Rei’s hand actually connects.  
  
Rei is there when Jack lays on his back on the roof, scanning the stars for another ominous tear, another portal to signal the resurgence of the war. He is bright against the night, drowning out the starlight, until his glow melds with the sunrise and Jack’s clothes are soaked with dew.  
  
Jack strings himself along from moment to moment, always waiting for this apparition to come to him wearing Rei’s face. His insanity, as he thinks of it, is more powerful than liquor, more powerful than fever. His hallucinations never warp or tremble, always showing a perfect memory of Rei in his flight suit, just as Jack had last seen him.  
  
Once, Jack asks, “What is it like, being dead?”  
  
Rei’s eyebrows draw down, his expression hardening.  
  
Jack has to laugh, a rough bark. “I’m too afraid to see for myself, yet,” he says.  
  
Rei looks at the precious flame in his hands and, finally, shrugs.  
  
“It must be boring, if you’re with me now,” breathes Jack.   
  
The corner of Rei’s mouth twitches, barely ticking upward. He shakes his head and shrugs again. His eyes, when they meet Jack’s gaze, look — lost.  
  
Jack’s imagination is cruel, to picture a Rei unable to rest. It twists in his gut. Somewhere, on the other side of the portal, Rei is a mangled corpse, in the wreckage of Yukikaze.  
  
Worse, he survived, and wasted slowly away in the cockpit with nothing but a dimming AI for company, and the persistent whirr of the JAM pressing down, patient and ravenous outside. And now, now… are there a thousand JAM in Rei’s shape, speaking in his deep, soft voice, staining his silver eyes an electric, sickening yellow? Or was he consumed only to be stored in their ever-widening knowledge as a point of trivia? Dissected with his plane, catalogued part by part, sinew and bone and nothing of who he was?  
  
Jack realizes he is choking only when Rei shoves the flame into his face and he recoils, some animal instinct taking over and bringing him back to himself. But there is no heat, no burn. He scrambles back anyway, pushing himself up and away and out into the blinding sun of the afternoon.   
  
There is nothing around him but grass and dirt, and an endless, unbroken blue sky.  
  


* * *

  
  
After the war, Jack was forced into retirement. The operations on Fairy were a united effort of many nations, and Jack’s knowledge made him too valuable and too dangerous simultaneously to be employed by any one of them after the portal closed. As one of the few high-ranking survivors, he stomached the brief spike of media attention and the periodic interviews from enthusiasts in the first few months after his return home.   
  
He bought the ranch in Australia for the solitude.  
  
After weeks of visits from Rei, Jack considers that choice a mistake. Only his monthly supply runs bring him into contact with real, solid, living humans.  
  
He leaves the ranch a few days early in the hope that he’ll ground himself.   
  
The cabin of Jack’s truck still smells like new car chemicals, baked to a nauseating intensity by the heat. He guides it down the road to the nearest town with the windows down, letting the dust blow in on the wind.   
  
His plan, as usual, is to fill the bed of his truck with wood to carve and dry goods to sustain him. The cab he will line with bottle upon bottle to help him sleep. The shops he visits are small outposts staffed by sturdy men and women that are polite without pressing, friendly in the way of acquaintances.  
  
He pulls his truck up to the first, a grocery store in an older style rarely seen in an era of megamarkets. When he steps in, a blast of air conditioning hits, and the heat trapped under his shirt rushes up along his neck as it tries to escape. The girl behind the counter is the second eldest daughter of the owner, Angie, or maybe Annie, and she greets him with a smile he makes himself return.  
  
Unhurried, Jack picks his way along the aisles, hauling bags of rice and beans onto a cart, grabbing packets of jerky by the handful, pulling cans of whatever seems appealing from the shelves.   
  
It isn’t until he’s considering the refrigerator in the back with bottles of soda behind fogged glass that he realizes his reflection is alight, bursting with flame from the chest. His pulse hammers as he tries to calm his breathing, but then Rei is there beside his reflection, urgent and burning.  
  
Jack takes a step back, jaw working, bile rising. From beside Jack’s reflection, Rei points to his ear, his eyes wide.  
  
Over the roar of his heart, Jack tries to listen.  
  
The song playing softly from the front of the store is saccharine, overproduced pop. And yet, Jack can feel the warmth in his own chest as the chorus begins, as young mens’ voices combine in harmony. He tears his eyes from his reflection and looks down at himself. The flame licks at his chin without burning, hovering in front of his heart as pure as sunrise.  
  
The lyrics are in Japanese, in Rei’s language. Jack understands them perfectly well, vague and empty platitudes about love and friendship and passion. The singers bring down the moon and stars, painting constellations with them, promising forever.  
  
Jack trembles, listening hard, trying to understand the desperate prodding of his own broken mind. Rei covers Jack’s hands with his own and Jack feels nothing. The song ends.  
  
Numbly, Jack leaves the cart. He walks to the front of the store and leans on the counter, forcing his thick tongue to move. “What was that song?”  
  
Annie, or maybe Angie, breaks into a shy smile. “Oh, um. It’s this J-pop band, you know, Japanese pop? They’re called STARISH. I’m… I dunno, I guess I’m pretty into them. You like?”  
  
Jack frowns, pushing himself up a little more, feeling chagrinned. “Just wasn’t what I was expecting,” he mumbles, looking away.  
  
“Uh,” she responds, looking at him sidelong. He flees, cart forgotten, to get away from her attention.   
  
There’s a small internet cafe a short distance away, and it’s there that he stumbles, falling into a seat in front of a computer ten years out of date. He thumbs money at the attendant without looking and hunches as he searches for STARISH. He barely thinks to hope that his body will block the curiosity of anyone passing behind him from seeing the screen.  
  
STARISH is a boy band. There are seven of them, each aligned with a color, groomed and pretty and inoffensive. He finds the orange one, Jinguuji Ren, and whispers the name to himself. The orange one, orange like the fire that curled tame and promising in Rei’s hands.  
  
Jinguuji comes from a wealthy family. He’s flirtatious, and contorts so his good side, the left, is always toward the camera. He has long, orange hair and blue eyes and a warm tan that stretches uniformly over his broad shoulders and taut stomach. He is perfectly packaged.  
  
Jack fights his own embarrassment as he searches, looking for something, anything to justify the fervent reaction Rei had in the store. He pays, over and over, to extend his time online, until the cafe owner gives him the warning that they’re about to close and he is ejected into the cooling night, his face and neck flushed.  
  
He feels like an idiot and like a pervert for scrutinizing picture after picture of a beautiful commodity. The stores are closed, and his truck, still in front of the grocery, is empty of the supplies he’d meant to buy. He drives home defeated, taking the longest way possible, circling in the dark.  
  
Hours of researching Jinguuji Ren taught him nothing of use.   
  
To Jack’s twisting chagrin, his exhausted eyes have at least one use for the afterimage of Jinguuji. As Jack tries to sleep, the face that surfaces in his memory no longer has Rei’s silver eyes. They are blue.  
  


* * *

  
  
Jack lasts two days before he returns to town. Rei has not appeared to him, and he is running out of food. As he drives toward the store, he insists to himself he is going only for supplies, that he’ll buy groceries and lumber and then go home.  
  
He parks at the edge of the lot, deciding to take a longer walk to clear his head. His feet take him to the entry of the internet cafe. He stands, dithering, until he forces himself inside with a grimace.  
  
He pays. He sits.  
  
In the long moment before he even lays his hand over the mouse, he tries to think of a way to find the answers he wants. To prove to himself once and for all that he’s lost his mind and that this chase is a series of convenient hallucinations. To, somehow, make Rei leave him alone.   
  
As much as it aches, he knows. He can’t keep seeing Rei.  
  
A flash of inspiration: he searches for the next appearances STARISH is scheduled to make. He’ll see them in person. He’ll see that they are just boys and smoke and mirrors, that the fire is all in his head.  
  
The solitude has gotten to him, he thinks. A trip, a little sightseeing, being another face in a crowd would do him good.  
  
He purchases a plane ticket to Japan, one way.  
  
For the second time that week, he returns home with an empty truck.  
  


* * *

  
  
Major James Bukhar, veteran second-in-command of the Fairy Air Force and survivor of Reconnaissance Division Special Air Force Unit (nicknamed Boomerangs), is monitored whenever he crosses a border for his own safety. The secrets in his head are invaluable and not limited to his combat experience.  
  
Still, he is free to go wherever he pleases, so long as he does not break his nondisclosure agreements, and on his sizable pension he doesn’t concern himself with economy.  
  
He flies to Japan first class, with enough space around his seat so that the apparition of Rei can catch the sunlight through the windows and keep him company. It’s clear from Rei’s expression that he much prefers the kind of flight that lets him swoop and dive, and the kind of plane that can read his mind.  
  
Jack never understood the connection Rei had with Yukikaze, not really. He didn’t have to understand it to defend it, though he often wished Rei’s interests could have, even once, turned to a love with a pulse. Still, Rei’s camaraderie, once gained, was more than enough.  
  
Too often, he remembers how light Rei had been, when he’d slammed him into the wall and begged him not to die. How cold Rei’s hands were as they curled around his wrists to get him to let go.  
  
Jack would welcome that touch now, if Rei could give it. The image of Rei that visits him touches him - tries to touch him - so much more than the real one ever did. It’s one of the clues that tells Jack that he has created this Rei for himself.  
  
When the plane touches down, he steps out into the night, catching a train to the hotel where there is a room waiting for him. Despite sleeping on the plane, he hits the mattress and loses another six hours with his face pressed into the covers.  
  


* * *

  
  
It is tremendously strange to be in a country he’s never visited, speaking a language he hasn’t used since the war. He’s unsure of the culture, erring on the side of careful politeness as often as he can, stumbling on slang terms.  
  
Jack buys himself a tablet computer and a few meals. He thinks better of buying himself anything to drink, primarily because he doesn’t trust his Japanese when he’s drunk, and suffers the return of his sobriety in his hotel room, watching interviews and music videos, live performances and TV appearances. He learns their faces and their names. He sweats into his sheets and curls around his stomach when it cramps.  
  
STARISH recordings do not ignite the fire in his chest, not like the first time. He gives up on playing them after the first day, feeling unfulfilled. On the third day, he finds a special event recording where Hijirikawa is playing the piano and Jinguuji sings. When he plays that video and Jinguuji’s voice comes forth from his speakers, he can very nearly feel Rei’s weight settling next to him on the bed. The flames from his heart and Rei’s are so bright he can almost feel their warmth. That song he plays on loop, and though Rei fades after the first four or five repeats, Jack can’t find it in himself to turn it off.  
  
The band is frustratingly popular. They’ve done a lot in the handful of years since their creation, from mall appearances to movies. Period dramas, musicals, game shows, modeling. They have thriving social media accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers, updated regularly with candid photos and short videos.  
  
He learns that getting into an appearance, even on the periphery, will be an uphill battle against the throngs of dedicated fans. He has to rule out concerts, sold out months in advance, or premieres limited to press.   
  
Instead, he gets himself on a list of seat fillers for daytime TV shows. With nothing better to do with his time, he attends recordings and, whenever an audience member leaves their seat, he takes over to make sure the room appears full. He attends taping after taping, building his rapport with the staff, until he knows he’ll at least be nearby when STARISH makes an appearance.   
  
Despite himself, the rhythms of attendance give him structure. He eats more consistently, and goes on runs in the evening to maintain the kind of body type a producer would like to see in their audience. When he’s alone in his hotel room, he does push-ups until his arms give out, and carves little sculptures out of the bars of complementary soap. Many become boomerangs, but others are birds, delicate and flaky, melting as soon as their feet are set in the small puddle of water in the soap dish.  
  
Jack is distressed to find himself feeling sane. Saner than the isolation in Australia had prompted, at least. And yet, he still sees Rei. He’s in the window in the morning, or in the shadows just offstage at taping. He runs his fingertips over Jack’s soap carvings when he sees them for the first time, arrayed along the bathroom counter. Sometimes, just behind him, Jack can almost see the sheen of metal and glass, the promise and pressure of artificial consciousness caged.  
  


* * *

  
  
The day STARISH makes an appearance, Jack is as nervous as a new recruit. He shows up to be seat filler as usual, but is told he probably won’t be needed. Still, they move him to the waiting pen, where his view of the stage is blocked by a hundred heads.  
  
The audience is screaming before STARISH is even announced. When they emerge, it’s with a dance number and a prerecorded song. They’re lip-syncing and they’re only a few meters away from Jack and they are so crushingly, perfectly normal that Jack’s heart sinks into his stomach. The proof before him, he can only conclude that he has well and truly lost his mind.   
  
The fact that he’d been expecting as much does nothing to dull the pain of it.  
  
It’s too late to leave, so he stays in the pen. Given his luck, it’s not surprising that a girl in the front row faints dead away and he is moved to take her place. It’s on the aisle, out of the view of the cameras, but his presence keeps anyone behind him from pushing forward. In his black shirt and jeans, he looks more like one of the hired security than a member of the audience, and it occurs to him belatedly that this was probably desirable.  
  
STARISH sit on couches, lounging together, knees touching and hands gesturing as they answer questions and laugh at stories. Jack can’t see hide nor hair of Rei, and tries to push the thought from his mind so he doesn’t scream.  
  
The band is there to promote their new single and upcoming tour, which Ichinose explains with professional aplomb. They discuss their side projects and their ambitions. Kurusu gives an update on an injury from which he is recovering, showing his wrist to the crowd, still in a brace. Ittoki and Shinomiya reminisce about a live musical and hint at a sequel. Whenever someone gets too far off topic, predominantly the excitable Aijima, it’s Ichinose or Hijirikawa that reins them back in. Jinguuji makes eyes at the crowd and drapes himself over Kurusu beside him.  
  
Then, as one, they get up and move upstage to sing another song. They’re patient and friendly with the stagehands as they’re given microphones to use, and wave to the audience while everything is being set up. Aijima is on the end nearest Jack, his green eyes scanning the audience as he smiles.  
   
When he lays eyes on Jack for the first time, his gaze is neutral, glancing.  
   
Then, Aijima freezes, because Rei is just in front of Jack, his shoulders stiff and his spine straight.  
  
Jack's heart clenches up in his chest. No, no, _no_ , it couldn't be. But Aijima doesn’t react further.  
  
When STARISH begins to sing, Rei shivers, becoming more solid, more real. Jack reaches for him, his hand swiping through empty air. Aijima never takes his eyes off of Rei.  
  
The chorus swells. The flame over Jack’s heart bursts to life, as does Rei’s. For an instant, just the tiniest instant, Jack curls his hand in the back of Rei’s flight suit and Rei turns, his eyes wide with shock.  
  
And then the song is over, and Rei is kneeling in front of Jack before he fades, and Jack is silent and bereft, tears streaming down his face.  
  
A man with an earpiece tells Jack to follow him.  
  
Numbly, he does.  
  


* * *

  
  
“Hello,” says Aijima, so small in the doorway to the green room. “I’d like to meet your friend. Is that okay?”  
  
Jack looks up from his hands where they are clasped in his lap. His military reflexes bring him to a standing position - the man’s a prince after all - before he even registers the question. “My… friend?” he croaks.  
  
Aijima smiles, coming inside and shutting the door. “Yes. The one who isn’t really here.”  
  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Jack, defensive.  
  
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that he isn’t real. I am not from here,” offers Aijima, his hands extended palm-up to placate. “The one who… the one who you miss very dearly.”  
  
Jack bristles, restraining the urge to wipe his face again. After he’d been led to this room and locked in, he’d wept for the fleeting pressure of Rei’s jacket under his fingers. Then, ashamed, he’d cleaned his face and tried to regain his composure.  
  
Aijima keeps his distance, but reaches into his shirt, pulling a pendant on a chain from beneath it. He sings, just a few bars.   
  
With startling speed, Rei appears between them, looking off-kilter and dizzy.  
  
Jack blurts an incoherent cry but Aijima approaches, his hand coming up to touch Rei's chest. Rei lets him. Aijima's questioning fingers pass through him, just a little.   
   
Rei's eyes widen. Aijima smiles, bright and bewildered.  
   
Rei speaks in a voice Jack can’t hear, and Aijima tilts his head to listen. The amulet around his neck glows.  
   
Jack swallows the bile in the back of his mouth. He feels the floor drop out from under him when they both turn to look at him.  
   
“Oh,” says Aijima. “Oh.”  
   
Rei presses his lips together in a firm line. He reaches for Jack, then drops his hand before the gesture is completed.  
   
Aijima curls his fingers over where Rei's shoulder should be. He breathes, “Don't go anywhere.”  
   
Jack wants to tell him to run.  
   
The girl with the depthless yellow eyes comes when Aijima calls for her. When he first sees her, Jack mistakes her. Her yellow-green eyes are so shallow, he assumes she is blind.  
   
But her eyes track, though they never focus on him for long. She looks at the floor, or at Aijima. Mostly the floor.  
   
When Rei first sees her, he goes still. Jack sees him lean over, his eyes never leaving her. Rei's hand rests on something, a faint shine in the blur at the far edge of Jack's vision. After a moment, he straightens again and gives Jack a nod.  
   
When Jack shakes his head, uncomprehending, Rei gives him a hand signal, one they used in the military to indicate _all clear_.  
   
Something relaxes in Jack, something he hadn't realized was tensed. Belatedly he realizes what had put Rei on edge; the girl’s eyes are the same color as the bodies of the JAM. Jack saw them once, only briefly, very near the end. Rei had been so much closer to them, close enough to touch. Nevertheless, Jack chides himself for letting his guard down, even if he’s spooking at shadows.  
  
Aijima introduces her as “Haruka — ah, I mean, Nanami. Nanami-san, our composer,” and Jack mush-mouths his way through his own introduction, unable to understand Aijima’s purpose.   
  
“Can you see him?” Aijima asks her.  
  
She turns her wide eyes on him and says, “Bukhar-san? He’s right there.”  
  
“No, my darling, the other one.”  
  
“Cecil-san?” she squeaks.  
  
Aijima sighs. “That is enough of an answer for me.” He turns to Jack and says, “I will have to pray about this. I would like very much for the both of you to travel with me until I know I can help you.”  
  
“No, that won’t be necessary,” says Jack, forgetting to be polite in the face of his shock.  
  
But Rei is nodding, turning to Jack and beckoning him, the urgency returning to his face.  
  
Aijima smiles. “I will add you to my personal retinue, Bukhar-san. I’m very pleased to meet you.”  
  


* * *

  
  
Jack is added to Aijima’s entourage. He’s classified as security, and arrangements are made to ensure Jack is always nearby. Things move with astonishing speed so that Jack is in a new hotel before he can even think to ask Aijima just what it was that Rei told him.  
  
He isn’t sure he wants to know.  
  
That night, late, as Jack wishes for the thousandth time that he’d had the guts to go down to the bar and drink himself into a stupor before it closed, Aijima knocks on his door. When Jack answers, Aijima waits to be invited in before coming to stand by the window and look out into the darkness.  
  
“I think I should explain things more clearly,” he says to the window.  
  
Jack sags down onto the edge of his bed and says, “Knock yourself out.”  
  
Aijima pauses briefly before chuckling. “Oh, you mean ‘go ahead.’ Yes, well. Do you know that I am a prince?”  
  
“Yeah,” says Jack, watching Aijima’s back. He’s in a loose shirt and sweatpants, socks and sandals, looking so much more like a kid than a prince, except for the pendant resting on his chest.  
  
“In my country, the royal family is also the highest of priests. We are the closest to our goddesses, the Muses, which govern creativity.”  
  
“Agnapolis, right?” murmurs Jack.  
  
Delightedly, Aijima turns. “Exactly! Did you look it up?”  
  
“Sure,” says Jack, because the truth is harder to explain. There had been an Agnapolean working with the psychiatrists on Fairy, using art and music to keep the stress of war at bay. She’d had the same dark skin and hair as Aijima, and a voice like a songbird. She got him paints for his boomerangs. Jack isn’t sure whether she survived. He thinks of her in the past tense, regardless.  
  
“The muses are very real, and they often help me write my songs. I use this,” and here he raises the pendant, letting it sway, “to speak with them. It is through the muses that STARISH came to be.”  
  
He comes to stand before Jack, his expression wry. “I’m told not to tell very many people about it, but it’s true. And I think you’ll believe me, because you understand what our music can do.”  
  
“What’s that?”  
  
“We connect people, Bukhar-san. We make people feel happy. But I’ve never seen anything quite like Lieutenant Fukai.”  
  
Swallowing thickly, Jack asks, “You — he told you his name?”   
  
“Yes, he introduced himself to me, and his — his companion, Yukikaze-san, who I could not quite see? But she must be very lovely, with that name.” Aijima’s tone is apologetic.  
  
Jack tenses. He can feel his joints popping. “She is.”  
  
“This must be very hard for you.” Aijima moves to sit beside him, far enough away that they do not touch. “I’m sorry.”  
  
“Just tell me if he’s dead,” breathes Jack, screwing his eyes shut.  
  
Aijima is quiet for a long moment, long enough that Jack knows the answer without his having to say it. Softly, Aijima says, “I can’t tell you for sure. At least, he isn’t where he’s meant to be.”  
  
Jack lets out a measured breath, and then another. “He knows he’s dead,” he croaks.  
  
“He’s come to you for help. That’s brought you to us.”  
  
“He kept showing me fires,” says Jack, his voice thin and reedy.  
  
Aijima hums. “The flame of passion.”  
  
“Fuck!” Jack swears, one explosive syllable pushing out from behind his teeth. It startles Aijima; Jack feels the mattress jump. But Jack can’t stand the knowing in Aijima’s voice, can’t stand that somehow _Aijima_ can hear Rei when it’s taken him months to finally begin to understand what Rei was trying to tell him.  
  
“I mean, that’s what Ren does,” explains Aijima, his voice tight and his words quick. “He ignites the fires in peoples’ hearts, he shows their passion to them—“  
  
“What do I have to do to get him where he needs to be,” spits Jack through gritted teeth. “How do I get him to rest?”  
  
Aijima takes a deep breath, then says, “I don’t know — yet! I don’t know yet. I have to ask the Muses and I have to wait for them to answer.”  
  
Jack bristles, pushing himself up and grinding his hands into his eyes. “Fuck,” he whispers, and then again. “ _Fuck_.”  
  
“Would you like to see him?” asks Aijima.  
  
“Don’t,” breathes Jack, holding on to his self-control with his nails. He wants to tell Aijima to bring Rei, to speak for him so they can finally talk again, to make Rei solid and real and make him _stay_.  
  
But Rei is dead. Dead in another dimension, dead and wandering and lost, dead and trying to come home and be done.  
  
By way of apology, Aijima says, “I… will go and pray. When I have an answer, I’ll come to you.”  
  
Jack doesn’t watch him leave, doesn’t drop his hands until he hears the latch on his door click shut.  
  


* * *

  
  
Aijima does not have an answer for him in the morning. Instead, he is presented with a schedule and is shuttled to an airport with the rest of the band and their handlers, and hustled onto a plane just before the sun creeps above the horizon.  
  
Exhausted, Jack goes where he’s told, plodding down the aisle of the plane to get to his seat. A flicker in his peripheral vision gives him pause.  
  
Rei is next to Jinguuji, in between him and the window.  
   
Jinguuji looks passive, disinterested, his eyes closed and his headphones in, music turned up high. But his knuckles around the player are white, his fingernails yellow with pressure.  
  
Jack gets pushed into the seat across the aisle. He stays, silent, not complaining about the sudden upgrade.  
   
Jack stares at the seat back ahead of him, hardly daring to glance over. But Rei is there, Rei is _there_ , between Jinguuji and the window.  
   
As soon as takeoff is complete, Jinguuji reaches out, blindly, through Rei's chest. He slides the shade down over the window.  
   
As soon as there is no sunlight to filter through him, Rei is gone.  
  


* * *

  
  
There are appearances to make, and meetings, so Jack spends much of his time in waiting rooms or hallways. He feels like luggage, performing perfunctory security detail where he won’t get in the way of the actual hired muscle, and otherwise doing very little other than taking up space.  
  
Aijima visits him in the evenings, swears he’s been praying for answers, but can’t give him anything concrete. He asks that Jack stay with him, since their singing grounds Rei and might give them a chance to figure out how to help.  
  
Without anything else to do, following the only lead he’s got, Jack agrees. The other members of STARISH think he’s part of the security team, and treat him professionally. The real members of security know he’s not one of them, and treat him like a bystander.  
  
Again, he’s alone, but with so many people around him that Rei appears less often. Rei seems to prefer silence and stillness, just as he had in life, and avoids the crowds that Jack moves in unless STARISH is performing. Then, he bursts into existence like a shock each time, and stays by Jack’s side to listen.  
  
Jack watches him during those times, memorizing the pale slope of his nose and the soft fall of his lashes. They take care never to move through one another, to stand shoulder-to-shoulder as they had when they shared the same plane of existence. When other people unthinkingly walk through Rei, it takes much of Jack’s willpower not to flinch.  
  
Aijima acknowledges Rei when he is there, but it doesn’t appear that he’s told the other members of STARISH. Jack prefers not to be the center of a spectacle, at least, but it’s a damning sign for any sort of solution. Not even their composer, with her electric yellow eyes, seems to see Rei for what he is.  
  
What brief stability that provides must, of course, be shattered eventually.  
  
It begins when Jack wakes up hours earlier than he should, thrown into consciousness by a familiar nightmare (seething, writhing nests of JAM underneath the surface of the Earth, quietly creating illusions and taking over without humanity’s knowledge; the portal’s closing was an illusion created by the JAM and Rei’s sacrifice meant nothing at all) and deciding to go to the hotel gym downstairs instead of stewing in a pool of his own cold sweat.  
  
The gym is small but functional, a row of treadmills and elliptical machines separated from the weight room by a glass wall. In front of the treadmills sits a small television tuned to the news. As Jack approaches, he sees a familiar orange ponytail bobbing at one of the treadmills.  
  
He takes the machine two over so he doesn’t crowd Jinguuji, and starts warming up.  
  
Jinguuji glances over. He huffs out a quiet greeting. Under flickering fluorescent lights, his tan is not so warm. There is sweat rolling down the back of his neck, soaking his shirt in an inverted triangle shape between his shoulders.  
   
Jack nods in return. He soon matches Jinguuji’s pace, and keeps it because it’s comfortable. This is nothing, compared to his old training, but Jinguuji's only goal is to be lean, to be attractive, to not lose his breath onstage.   
  
Jinguuji breathes easily, his head up, his expression relaxing. The news anchor switches to a weather forecast for the day. If it snows, it’ll be the first of the season.  
  
They don’t talk. They watch the early-morning news. Beyond the windows of the gym, the gray fingers of dawn have not even breached the horizon, and stars still glitter overhead.  
  
Jack feels, rather than sees, Jinguuji cooling down. Jinguuji slows to a brisk walk, then steps down and drops into a series of long stretches. Jack follows suit, just to have something to do. His nightmare is cleared from his mind, and instead he focuses on not watching the lean muscles in Jinguuji’s calves flex.  
  
Jinguuji is nothing like Rei. He’s a flirt and a dancer. He’s physical. Charming. Still, Jack has to make himself wait an appreciable interval before he follows Jinguuji to the showers, to be polite.  
  
When he gets there, Jinguuji is already in a stall, humming softly to himself. His voice is deep and rich. Jack peels his sweaty shirt from his back just as Jinguuji ramps up into a quiet song. An orange flame flickers in Jack’s chest, glowing before him.  
  
“Jesus,” he mumbles under his breath, startled.   
  
The singing abruptly stops, and Jinguuji’s head, his wet hair slicked to his skull and dangling, pokes out of one of the stalls. “Sorry to bother— whoa.”  
  
Jack blinks, then looks to his side. There, Rei at least has the decency to look surprised at being caught by a second member of STARISH. He, too, has a fire cradled against his chest.  
  
Jinguuji shuts off the water, wraps a towel around his waist, and pads, dripping, toward Jack. “What the hell,” he breathes, wide-eyed.  
  
Jack feels a sudden surge of protectiveness, steps between Rei and Jinguuji. “Nothing.”  
  
Jack jumps when Jinguuji’s hand lands on his chest. Jinguuji jerks it away, his jaw dropping, then takes a step back.  
  
“It’s too late. I saw that.” Jinguuji’s eyes narrow. “Cesshi’s been holding out on us.”  
  
“Don’t say that like he’s a possession,” snarls Jack, advancing on Jinguuji.  
  
Jinguuji holds his ground until their chests almost brush. “Easy, whoa,” he says, touching Jack’s arms. His hands are light, not restraining. He maintains eye contact with Jack, though he has to tilt his chin up to manage it. “I didn’t mean it like that. I mean… I mean, he brought you along with us, didn’t he? He knew about this and he didn’t tell anyone. But clearly—“  
  
“Clearly what,” says Jack, his tone flat. He holds on to any frustration he can find, because Jinguuji is beautiful and too close.  
  
“Clearly he, and you, both of you react to the sound of my voice. It’s, uh. It’s this quality it has. I light fires.”  
  
“So Aijima said.”  
  
Jinguuji’s mouth twitches into a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “I bet. But if he did, then it was your decision to keep me in the dark, wasn’t it?”  
  
Jack frowns. “I didn’t want to make a big deal of it.” He takes a step back, glancing to his side to find Rei standing with his hands in his pockets. Rei is watching them both with wary eyes, the flame gone from his chest.  
  
“It won’t be, if you don’t want,” says Jinguuji. With the increased distance, he relaxes a little, cocking his hip out. “But. You’re coming with us for a reason.”  
  
“He asked us to come,” says Jack, more softly. He watches water drip in a line from the ends of Jinguuji’s hair down the planes of his chest and abdomen. Treacherously, his mouth says, “Come to my room and we’ll talk.”  
  
Jinguuji only grins. “Gotcha,” he says, and goes back to his shower stall. He whips the towel from his hips and hangs it over the hook.  
  
Jack waits for the water to start again before moving to take his own shower. He doesn’t check to see if Rei is still there. He doesn’t want to see Rei’s face.  
  


* * *

  
  
Jinguuji is long and lean, and despite his height he’s swimming in the loose v-neck and sweatpants he put on after his shower. He follows Jack up to Jack’s room without a word, his pace easy. He doesn’t crowd Jack in the elevator, doesn’t give any indication as to whether or not he’s noticed Jack’s bald, foolish attraction to him.  
  
Jack just lets him in, and watches as Jinguuji settles, cross-legged, in the center of Jack’s bed like it isn’t still warm from Jack sleeping in it.   
  
“So where’s the other guy?” he asks, resting his elbows on his knees.  
  
Jack sighs. “He comes and goes.”  
  
Jinguuji tilts his head, his wet hair curling against his jaw. “Does this have something to do with Fairy?”  
  
Jack startles, frowning. Jinguuji holds up his hands. “Hey, Cesshi might not have figured out things like Google but I sure as hell know how to look a guy up. Major Bukhar.”  
  
Jack shakes his head, sitting down in his room’s sole chair. It’s cold and hard, the metal creaking as it takes his weight. “Don’t call me that.”  
  
“What should I call you?” asks Jinguuji. His eyes crinkle when he smiles. “Jack?”  
  
“Sure, Ren,” Jack retorts, not expecting Jinguuji to laugh and agree.  
  
“But does it?” asks Jinguuji, his expression returning to seriousness. “I mean, does Fairy have anything to do with this?”  
  
Jack runs a hand over his hair, the wet strands catching in the creases of his knuckles. “In a manner of speaking, yes.” He leans toward the window, twitching the curtain back to check on the sunrise. The sky is gray-violet, warming toward morning.  
  
“His name is Fukai. He gave his life so we could get back through the portal, before we closed it.” Jack talks in the direction of the window, not wanting to see Jinguuji’s face. “But he’s been showing up. It started a few months after, but he didn’t manage to come consistently until he came with fire.”  
  
The silence stretches between them. Jack finally caves, looking back at the bed.  
  
Jinguuji hasn’t moved, except to cover his mouth with his hand. His eyes are distant and a little wet, his jaw tight. He catches Jack’s eye, then blinks and looks away, mumbling, “Hell, what am I doing to the poor guy?”  
  
Jack swallows. “I… I don’t think you’re hurting him. When Aijima saw him, they both convinced me to stay.”  
  
Jinguuji closes his eyes. In the warm, yellow glow of the bedside lamp, the dark hollows beneath his lashes are deep and purple. “Okay.”  
  
“Aijima said he’d pray for an answer,” says Jack lamely, too aware of how imbecilic it sounds.  
  
Jinguuji smiles another small, twitchy smile. “Cesshi’s always talking about how our music has the power to draw people together, you know? I never thought it’d reach that far. But, hey. Stranger things have happened.”  
  
“Tell me what could possibly be stranger than this,” says Jack, his eyebrows raising.  
  
“This one time,” says Jinguuji, his eyes flickering open, “I was in a stadium when the power went out. I didn’t know what to do and I was the only guy onstage, so I yelled at the people in the front row not to panic. And _everybody shut up._ I mean everybody. So… so I sang. I didn’t know what else to do. And the whole place lit up. Fire, everywhere.”  
  
Jack stares, breathing, “Holy hell.”  
  
“I thought I was losing it,” says Jinguuji, straightening and rolling out his shoulders. “But. If I can reach the cheap seats without a mic, why not another dimension. Why the hell not?”  
  
Jack watches Jinguuji’s hands shake as they rake through his hair.   
  
Jinguuji looks up. “I’ll help you. And him. However I can. But Cesshi’s the one with the direct line to the muses.”  
  
“Can… can all of you do things like that?” asks Jack, folding his arms around his chest.  
  
Wryly, Jinguuji mumbles, “When we first got together we caused a couple of mass hallucinatory events.” When Jack gapes at him, he continues, speaking toward his lap, “It didn’t hit the news because I don’t think anybody wanted to admit they were part of a spontaneous group orgasm.”  
  
“I don’t think that’s going to help me,” says Jack, leaning back into the chair with his arms crossed over his chest.  
  
Jinguuji laughs. “Maybe not, though you kinda look like you could use some loosening up.”  
  
Jack’s tone turns icy. “Thank you.”  
  
“Sorry, sorry.” Jinguuji unfolds himself and stands. “I’ll get on Cesshi to pray harder, or something. Tell Fukai-san it was, uh. Nice to meet him.”  
  
Jack swallows. “Ren.”  
  
Jinguuji pauses in pulling his gym bag over his shoulder. “Mm?”  
  
“I mean. Thank you. For giving him a way to come back.”  
  
Jinguuji’s smile this time is small and genuine. “I’m glad it helped. I’ll, um. I’ll see you later. Jack.”  
  


* * *

  
  
When the snow finally starts to come down, it’s early afternoon.  
  
While STARISH make appearances, scattering in different chauffeured cars to studios or soundstages or practice rooms, Jack is left on his own. He is a guest, a hanger-on, a groupie without a purpose. After a check of his duffel, he realizes the coat he brought isn’t going to protect him against the cold. He uses the excuse to take a walk away from the insulated world of the hotel and find a replacement.   
  
The snow is falling gently, caught on the softest eddies of wind. Most of the flakes melt before they even reach the street, evaporating in the exhaust from passing cars. The cold seeps through Jack’s jeans and he keeps his arms tucked in tight as he walks. He’d come to Japan in the fall, never expecting he’d still be there by winter’s descent. Somehow, weeks and months had passed him by before he’d ever come close to seeing STARISH in the flesh. Now, though things had moved so quickly once he’d met Aijima, he is adrift and impatient.  
  
His mood doesn’t improve as he enters the first shop he finds. The place is packed and he can’t seem to find a coat that fits among the garments left by other last-minute shoppers surprised by the snow. The only one that fits his broad shoulders and chest is a traffic-stopping yellow that, he reasons, will not endear him to STARISH or their retinue. He moves on.  
  
Shop after shop yields no results, and every time he has to leave the heated indoors and step into the bracing cold, he grimaces more deeply. With the growl of his stomach he concedes temporary defeat and ducks into a coffee shop for a hot drink.  
  
Coffee shops are safer than restaurants because they tend not to include liquor in their menus. Jack knows himself, and knows that the sobriety he’s been holding on to since he came to Japan is hard-won and easily lost. Under these circumstances, wanting little else than to forget, to sleep an unbroken few hours, the temptation is too great for him to risk. He gets a coffee and a sandwich, some soggy, pre-refrigerated, packaged thing, and tucks himself into a back corner, facing the windows. The hot drink warms him up, chasing the ache from his knees and bringing life into his fingers and feet. He stays in his coat until just before he starts to sweat, then hangs it from the back of his chair.  
  
The girl that Rei distrusts enters the coffee shop. The one called Nanami Haruka, the one Rei had to confirm as human. The one with eyes the same sparking yellow-green as the twisting truth of the JAM.   
  
She is dressed in pastels, dwarfed in a pink peacoat, with pale yellow mittens and scarf, and a white knit cap over the bright red-orange of her hair. Her white boots are laced up to her knees, revealing gray fleece leggings over the hint of her legs. She has a messenger bag slung across her body.   
  
When her eyes find him, they widen in surprise.  
  
Jack tries not to tense, but his instinctive response is hard to override. She approaches, bowing when she reaches the side of the table.  
  
“Hello. It’s nice to see you again, Bukhar-san.” The tiny, high chirp of her voice cuts through the background din of the shop. She pulls off her mittens, tucking them into the pocket of her coat.  
  
He nods. “Yes. I didn’t realize you were traveling with the band.”  
  
She smiles. “I’m not. I wish I could, but I have other meetings to attend. It’s chance that we met, but a nice one. May I sit with you?”  
  
He has no reason to refuse her, so he agrees. Her smile broadens and she goes to place her order.   
  
She is just a human, he repeats to himself. Not a JAM scout, not their first attempt at hiding in plain sight. The JAM are too smart to give themselves away with such unsettling eyes. She’s just a human.  
  
When Nanami returns, she sits across from him with a cup of rich, dark tea cradled between her hands. The beds of her fingernails are blue, the skin of her hands so pale they are almost translucent. She breathes the steam over her cup and some of her hair sticks to her face with the humidity. Her cheeks and lips are flushed. With her eyes closed, she is pretty.  
  
“I love the snow,” she says softly. “But I think I love being inside when it’s snowing the most.”  
  
Jack watches her as she has a sip of her tea. Her eyes open slowly, and focus on him. He’s aware that it’s his turn to prolong the conversation, but his words stop in his throat. As the silence stretches, Nanami looks more sheepish.  
  
“Cecil-san says you have a friend who is trying to get home,” she ventures, setting the cup down on its saucer on the table. “He’s asked me to write a song for him.”  
  
Jack presses his lips together. In the absence of some sign from Aijima’s precious goddesses, this is the most elegant solution. If STARISH can sing Rei into Jack’s life again, a song specifically for him could be the key to guiding him back to this world. Still, the thought of a homecoming song for Rei chafes, because this girl works for an agency that _sells_ the songs she writes. “Thank you, but no.”  
  
As if she’s read his mind, she says, “They would only sing it once, just for him. Cecil-san has told me he’s special to you.”  
  
Jack opens his mouth to protest; he isn’t protesting Rei’s place in his life, but Aijima’s indiscretion. She just continues before he can speak. “I prefer to write songs about people I’ve gotten to know. Would it be alright, if I can’t meet him, if I could learn about him from you?”  
  
Jack’s first, childish impulse is to refuse her. The earnestness of her expression is undercut by her eyes, by his memory of Rei’s discomfort. And yet. Nanami is the first person to ask after Rei like he’s alive, and his heart aches to pretend it’s true, even for a moment.  
  
He lets out a slow breath. “His name is Fukai Rei. He’s a Lieutenant, and he served under my command.”  
  
When he starts to speak, Nanami scrambles in her bag for a pad of paper and starts making notes. Her pen has a strawberry on the end. Jack doesn’t slow down.  
  
“He doesn’t take care of himself, except enough to stay in shape to fly. He’s a pilot. He’s the most talented pilot anyone’s ever seen. He can interface with his jet faster than most people can hold a conversation. He loves flying. He doesn’t want to be anywhere else but in that jet.” As he talks, it gets easier. Jack looks down into the dregs of his coffee and says, “He likes quiet. He thinks before he talks, if he talks at all. And he’s… He’s brave, braver than anyone else I’ve ever known.”  
  
Jack curls his hands around his empty cup, feeling the residual warmth in the ceramic. “He’s the reason I’m alive.”  
  
Nanami’s pen moves in quick swoops and curves. Jack sits across from her, feeling heat and emptiness hollow him out. Suddenly, the heat of the coffee shop is too much, the blood pounding in his ears is too loud.   
  
Dimly, he hears Nanami thank him. He wonders how a girl who is so barely present could ever write a song for Rei, who was never meant to touch the ground in the first place. He pushes himself up, only just remembering to grab his coat, and leaves without another word.  
  
Outside, the snow has stopped falling. It is nothing but dry and cold under a pale gray sky.   
  


* * *

  
  
Jack is in the hotel bar. He made it long enough. He’s cracking, and he only wants to sleep. To wash the image of Nanami’s face from his memory. To forget all of it, that Rei’s gone and he’s here and he’s following a fucking boy band like a duckling because they’re the only hope he’s got.  
  
He makes it through his order. He waits for the bartender to put a napkin down in front of him, and then set the glass down.   
  
Before he can lift it, Jinguuji’s hand comes down and covers the rim.  
  
“Hey, Jack,” he says, his voice low and warm. “Thanks.”  
  
“You’re too young for that,” says Jack, trying to make his voice come out easy. It rasps.  
  
Jinguuji just shrugs. “Fukai-san came and got me while I was rehearsing. He let me know you wanted some company.”  
  
Jack is mute with shock. Jinguuji takes the cup and knocks back a mouthful. It’s Scotch, and he winces, coughing as it goes down. “Ugh,” he groans as he sets the glass on the bar.  
  
There’s still half a finger left in the bottom of the glass, but Jack doesn’t want it, not any more. “My room, now,” he says, low. He leaves a wad of bills on the bar as he pushes away from it, and Jinguuji leaves with him.  
  
When they’re in the elevator, Jinguuji wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and says, “Scared the crap outta me. He just showed up while I was practicing.”  
  
“Were you alone?”  
  
“Yeah.” Jinguuji nods. “I … I figured I should find you. So he led me.”  
  
Jack leans against the wall of the elevator. The walls are mirrored, and he can see his own face reflected over Jinguuji’s shoulder, haggard and ugly. Weakly, he says, “He led you to me.”  
  
Jinguuji says, “Yeah. I had to keep singing or he’d disappear, which was awkward—"  
  
“Did he tell you to drink in a public bar?” asks Jack, grasping at something to ground the conversation. “Where you could be caught or photographed?”  
  
Defensive, Jinguuji curls his lip. “Did he tell _you_ to ask me back to your room like that?”  
  
Jack’s hands curl into fists. Instead of humiliation at being called out on wanting Jinguuji, he feels only anger. “You know what I meant.”  
  
“And Fukai-san doesn’t want you to drink. Okay?” spits Jinguuji, puffing out his chest. The liquor on his breath is hot and sweet.  
  
“You’ve got so much more to lose,” snarls Jack, then freezes. Jinguuji’s eyes are wide, his hand extending between them, reaching.   
  
The elevator reaches his floor and chimes. Jack doesn’t move.  
  
Jinguuji grabs him by the shirt and pulls him into the hall, down toward his room. He digs in Jack’s coat pockets until he finds the room key and lets them both in. Jack only thinks to fight him once Jinguuji has shut the door, but by then Jinguuji is pushing him onto the end of the bed, forcing him to sit.  
  
Jinguuji is a kid, a beautiful kid. He grabs Jack by the shoulders and gets in his face. “That’s bullshit,” he says, jaw working.   
  
Jack jerks, all of his combat training screaming at him to get his elbow up under Jinguuji’s chin. He holds it down, biting the side of his tongue until he tastes blood. Jinguuji just squeezes his shoulders. “Come on, Jack. You don’t think that. Don’t think that.”  
  
Jack remains still as Jinguuji talks at him, over him. “Fukai-san came and got me. He brought me to find you. So he — he agrees with me.”  
  
“He’s dead,” croaks Jack, feeling the copper tang of blood coat his teeth. He doesn’t swallow.  
  
Jinguuji shakes his head. “So? How many people you think would want to be able to take care of their goddamn loved ones once they died?”  
  
“He isn’t — we never —“ Jack protests weakly.  
  
“Whatever! I don’t care.” Jinguuji squeezes again, hard, digging his fingers into Jack’s shoulders. “I don’t care.”  
  
Jack rolls his shoulders out of Jinguuji’s grip. Jinguuji lets him go.  
  
“I’m just the messenger, alright?” mumbles Jinguuji, rubbing the palms of his hands on his jeans. He looks shaky, stepping back.  
  
Jack runs his tongue over the roof of his mouth. It isn’t bleeding anymore, but the sour tang remains. “Does he talk to you?”  
  
Jinguuji shakes his head. “He tried. I can’t hear his voice,” he says, apology creeping into his tone. He moves to the chair by the window and sinks down into it. “He listened to me practice for a while, and then he stood by the door and stared at me until I came with him.”  
  
“Why you?”   
  
When Jinguuji glares at him, he clarifies, “Aijima can hear him when he talks. And he can make him show up with that thing around his neck. Why would he go to you?”  
  
“Fire?” offers Jinguuji, shrugging. “I was already singing, anyway.” He looks down at his lap, his hands curling over his knees. “I don’t know.”  
  
Jack sighs, rubbing his hands over his face. “Fire, then.” He wants a drink now, more strongly than before.  
  
“Yeah. Uh. Do you… do you want to come hang out with me while I practice? Maybe he’ll show up again.”  
  
Jack watches Jinguuji, the trepidation on his face. He looks for pity, but can’t find any. Instead, the corners of Jinguuji’s eyes are creased, and he kneads at his jeans. Jack finds himself saying, “Yeah. Okay.”  
  
The walk back to the room Jinguuji has been using for practice is short and silent. It’s a conference room that isn’t in use, with a pitcher of water, half empty, on the table. Jack takes a seat in one of the chairs, and Jinguuji picks up a folder from beside the pitcher. With no apparent shyness, Jinguuji lifts the folder, flips through it, and starts to sing.  
  
Jack is braced for the fire to appear. What he isn’t expecting is the warmth. More than the hot coffee he’d had that afternoon, bone-deep, Jinguuji’s voice warms him. Every ache dissipates. The sour taste in his mouth fades away. All he can see is the fire, curling around Jinguuji like a friend. Jinguuji doesn’t open his eyes except to check his paper.  
  
Rei sinks into the chair beside Jack, looking unapologetic.  
  
Together, they watch him as he sings.  
  
Jack doesn’t know how long it is before Jinguuji finishes. He just knows that Rei has relaxed beside him and there is nothing around them but darkness and the glow of Jinguuji’s voice. Even if Jinguuji hits a sour note, the flame persists. He’s singing about the most superficial things, words as vapid and innocent as the imaginary girls he’s romancing. And these are the words that keep Rei anchored beside him.  
  
It’s almost funny.  
  
Jinguuji trails off when his phone buzzes, then clears his throat as he thumbs across the screen. Jack swallows as Rei fades away, until it’s just him and Jinguuji together. The conference room is warm, stiflingly dry. It doesn’t reach into his core like Jinguuji’s voice had.  
  
“It’s getting late,” says Jinguuji, tucking the folder under his arm. “Do you want to get something to eat?”  
  
“I’m not hungry,” says Jack without thinking. When he’s with Jinguuji normally, his skin feels too tight, like Jinguuji can see right through it. And yet, Jinguuji is a frustrating child with no life experience beyond the bounds of a stage. And Jack _wants_ him. Wants him like he hasn’t wanted another person since Fairy.  
  
If Jinguuji isn’t singing, Jack shouldn’t be near him. It’s just unwise.  
  
Instead of taking his answer as truth, Jinguuji says, “Just come. You can tell me about your day.”  
  
Jack scowls at his presumption. Jinguuji smiles. “I want to know.”  
  
“I started it with you. I tried to get a heavier coat but I couldn’t find anything. And I had coffee with your composer. You know the rest.” Jack’s tone is flat.   
  
Jinguuji blinks, tilting his head. “You had coffee with Nanami?” The possessiveness in his tone is almost amusing. As though Jack would be a viable threat, a potential object of her affection.  
  
“She interviewed me for a song.”  
  
Jack watches the gears turn in Jinguuji’s head, the way his shoulders relax when he smiles. “That’s a good idea. That’s a really good idea.”  
  
Jack sighs. “You think it’s going to work?”  
  
“I… yeah.” Jinguuji looks down at the folder under his arm. “I don’t expect you to swallow everything we tell you just because all kinds of weird shit is already happening. But. Yeah.”  
  
Jack sucks on the side of his tongue. It stings, sharp and bright. “There’s no precedent. For any of this. No scientific basis.”  
  
Jinguuji shrugs. “There wasn’t really a precedent for going through the wormhole in the first place, right? Or any of the things that occurred on the other side, either.”  
  
“You don’t know what happened over there.”  
  
“No, I don’t.” Jinguuji leans his hip against the table. “I guessed. At this point, the things Cesshi can do — the things _we_ can do defy scientific precedent, too. Maybe they’re linked somehow.”  
  
“You have no way to prove that,” says Jack, leaning forward in his chair.  
  
Jinguuji just grins. “You’re the one who’s experienced all of the phenomena. We could experiment.”  
  
The tone in Jinguuji’s voice, quiet invitation, gives Jack pause. He ventures, “Did you just tell me to study you?”  
  
“Dinner first, Jack,” says Jinguuji and, yes, he’s flirting. There’s a quirk in his smile and expectation in his expression.  
  
Jack wonders if he’s being manipulated. If Jinguuji knows his attraction and is using it to get Jack to be more docile. Jack wonders if this is Jinguuji’s deal. His image type is more adult than the others, and he played up his sensuality in every interview Jack watched before they met. Jinguuji works to appear sexy and available, to light fires of passion.  
  
Jinguuji’s teeth are bleached white and sharp. His body posture is open, his hands loose.  
  
Jack knows that if Jinguuji means it, he’s running the risk of losing his reputation. Losing everything he’s worked to build. Losing Nanami.  
  
Jack gets up. “I’m not hungry,” he says, meaning to push past Jinguuji and get some quiet. He’s too chastised to go back down to the bar, but the silence of his hotel room would be enough.  
  
Jinguuji catches his arm. “I’ve got some time tomorrow morning,” he says. “We’ll go and see if we can find a coat for you. It’s only going to get colder.”  
  
Despite himself, Jack nods. “Fine.”  
  


* * *

  
  
Jack rides beside Jinguuji in a nice, dark car in silence. He wonders if it’s to make him twitch, when all Jinguuji would have to do is sing to get Rei to appear. He wonders if Jinguuji is lording it over him, if he’s laughing at Jack on the inside.  
  
He’d skipped the gym that morning, not wanting to run into Jinguuji, but hadn’t been able to avoid him at breakfast. Jinguuji had cheerfully told his bandmates that he was taking Jack to get a winter coat, and promised to return him in one piece. The others, Aijima included, had appeared to think this was a brilliant idea, and Jack was shuttled into a waiting car before he’d been able to protest.  
  
And what would he have done had he stayed? Sat in his room and stewed, perhaps? Or gone out on his own into the snow?   
  
Jack watches the snowy city pass by outside the car windows now and decides, at least, that walking in it would be uncomfortable. The snow had fallen ceaselessly overnight, and now the streets are a mess of slush and salt. Those unlucky pedestrians on the sidewalks pick their way carefully, avoiding ice. The heat blasting from the vents in the car is strong enough to make him loosen his collar.  
  
Beside him, Jinguuji is dressed for fashion, not warmth, in a tailored coat not much thicker than Jack’s own. His scarf is looped loosely, uselessly around his neck, over a collarbone-baring loose-necked shirt. Most idiotically, in Jack’s opinion, he’s wearing a necklace with a metal pendant against that bared skin. His bare hands have rings on the fingers, and his earrings are metal. If Jinguuji were ejected from his protection, from this car, he’d freeze horribly in the biting cold.  
  
So much of Jinguuji is image and farce. Jack has made himself forget about Jinguuji’s flirting, which was nothing more than a power play with no substance. Just as is his silence.  
  
The car stops at the back of a store. The driver comes around to let them out, at which point they’re guided inside through the staff entrance. Jack makes a rough noise when a salesperson brings out a small rack of winter coats. He realizes, when it continues, that he’s laughing.  
  
“This is reality for you, isn’t it?” he asks Jinguuji’s bewildered face. “This is normal.”  
  
Jinguuji’s expression softens. “Yep,” he says. To the salesperson, he adds, “Not the green one.”  
  
Jack laughs and reaches for the green one. He laughs as he puts it on, and as he zips it up and finds it won’t close over his chest. He laughs when Jinguuji says, wryly, “I told you so.”   
  
He shakes his head, chuckling to himself, when he finds a lined jacket, dark gray, with clasps instead of a zipper and a thick, high collar. He pulls it on and feels comforted by the weight of it. It traps his heat and warms him. In the heat of the shop, he feels sweat break out on the back of his neck.  
  
Jinguuji is talking to the salesperson, flirting indiscriminately, looking refined and graceful. He looks older, knowing, and yet so tame. He’s leashed to his public persona, confined by his contract. The metal around his neck sways when he bends, the sparkle drawing the salesperson’s eyes to his bare skin.  
  
“Excuse me,” says Jack, sliding out of the coat to check for a tag. “I’d like this one.”  
  
“I’ve taken care of it,” says Jinguuji, turning to him with a smile. “We can go.”  
  
Jack pauses, looking down at the coat in his hands. “No, we didn’t discuss anything like that.”  
  
“Consider it a peace offering.”  
  
Jack blinks, but Jinguuji’s expression is mild. “What peace did you break?” he asks.  
  
Jinguuji shrugs. “You tell me,” he murmurs, stepping forward. He pulls the coat from Jack’s hands and lays it over his shoulders. “Are you angry with me?”   
  
Jack lets Jinguuji’s hands pass over him, like he isn’t a threat. Jinguuji couldn’t know how badly Jack wants him, and how deeply he hates himself for it. For falling for a fictional mask over a flesh-and-blood frame, for letting himself be played with, flirted with. For how deeply it feels like a betrayal, when he is only there to guide Rei home. Jinguuji has no idea how badly Jack misses Rei, how he’d stopped wanting Rei well before they became close friends, and how that has no bearing on the fact that Jack has lost his best friend and nearly everyone he knew. Jinguuji can’t fathom that. Even the parts of Jack’s loss he’s touched (and oh, how he still wants to knock Jinguuji’s teeth into his throat for intercepting him at the bar, and how ashamed he is at himself for breaking down, for ordering a drink and for _wanting to hurt this kid_ ) are so removed from his experience. Jinguuji couldn’t flirt, couldn’t grin at a man like Jack if he understood. And worst, perhaps worst of all, this person who could summon Rei with a breath chooses not to do it except at those times when Jack is most weak. Jinguuji lets Rei see him like this, torn between desire and grief, consumed wholly with his guilt.  
  
Jack thinks all of these things, and they rise like bile in his throat. Jinguuji is wearing a musky cologne and Jack wants to put his mouth on his skin.   
  
He says, “You buy forgiveness, is that it?”  
  
“I don’t have anything else to offer,” says Jinguuji, smiling with one side of his mouth. “Not anything you want.”  
  
Jack swallows, makes himself say, “You’re right.”  
  
Jinguuji’s smile doesn’t falter, but Jack can see the uncertainty cut through his eyes. He seems to be the kind of person that doubles down when he’s insulted, however, because he just smoothes the coat over Jack’s chest and steps back. “Let’s get out of here.”  
  
Jack glances at the salesperson, who is utterly besotted with Jinguuji. He gets the feeling that trying to press the matter and pay for himself won’t go over. He considers walking, but the snow is coming down and he isn’t quite sure where he is in relation to the hotel. Still, spending another moment in Jinguuji’s company might drive him to regrettable action.  
  
And yet. Jack knows he would immediately forgive Jinguuji if he only sang.  
  
With that possibility looming, he falls into step, following Jinguuji out of the back of the store. He sits in the warm, nice car in his warm, nice coat, next to a warm, nice, young man. He feels hollow, like he’s pretending to be a person.  
  
Outside, the snow falls in fat clumps, clinging to any surface cold enough to hold a freeze.  
  


* * *

  
  
The next time he sees Jinguuji, they are getting on a plane. Given the level of their chatter, it’s unusual for them to take flights so often, but necessary to move them quickly before the worst of the snowstorms hit.   
  
They’re crammed in with other staff members, bodyguards in the front, coordinators and managers interspersed. The spot for Jack is across the aisle from Aijima, next to a harried coordinator. She pulls her computer out of her bag seconds after takeoff and begins typing continuously. Jack stares into the middle distance of the aisle to keep himself from watching her fingers.  
  
Outside the sky has settled into the inky black of night, but below the plane the clouds are thick and ominous. Jack keeps his eyes on the aisle. He worries his eyes would play tricks on him if he looked outside, seeing the jagged points of the JAM ships in the tendrils of clouds.  
  
The plane jolts suddenly. Jack feels his stomach hit the back of his throat. His immediate thought is to break down the door to the cockpit and take evasive maneuvers.  
  
From behind him, there comes a high, thin whimper. Reality descends and Jack flexes his hands on the armrests.  
  
It’s just turbulence, nothing more. The plane doesn’t rock with the impact of another metal body. Jack has weathered worse without a flinch. The gentle tone of the seatbelt signal coming on cuts through Jack’s memory. He fumbles with the buckle, though it is already clasped over his lap.  
  
Behind him, Shinomiya is murmuring, soothing and soft. “Syo-chan,” he says, “it’s okay. I’m here.”  
  
Beside him, the coordinator holds her computer to her chest, closed, like she plans to protect it with her body. To the other side, Aijima is twisted around in his seat, cheering Kurusu to be brave.  
  
And ahead of him by one row, Jinguuji is shaking in his seat. They are tiny tremors, but the longer Jack watches, the more obvious it is that nobody else has noticed.  
  
The plane shudders again. Jinguuji’s head flinches downward until Jack can’t see it over the seat.  
  
Jack steels himself to do something stupid. He picks his moment, waiting for the worst of the pitching to subside, before he unbuckles his seatbelt and pushes himself across the aisle and into the empty seat beside Jinguuji.  
  
Jinguuji is hunched, almost into a ball, his hands so tight on the armrests. His face is a rictus of suppressed panic, his headphones knocked loose and hanging around his neck. Jack buckles himself in and grabs Jinguuji’s hand.  
  
With a jolt, Jinguuji’s eyes come open. They are wide and blue and almost unseeing. He takes too long to focus on Jack, too long to try and hide his fear. His mouth comes open, jaw working uselessly. When his voice emerges, it’s a low croak.  
  
Jack feels the warmth, sees the fire before he realizes Jinguuji is really singing. Under his breath, low and shaky, but there. The words slur together and Jack can’t understand them, but he can hear Jinguuji’s voice.  
  
It’s enough. Rei appears, standing beside Jack in the footwell. He doesn’t look alarmed, only wry. Both Jack’s and Jinguuji’s knees pass through his legs. Rei leans forward, bracing one forearm against the top of Jinguuji’s seat so his head doesn’t cut into the overhead bins.  
  
The plane drops a second time, hard enough that Jack’s body lifts slightly out of his seat. Jinguuji gasps, screwing his eyes shut tight, but doesn’t stop singing.   
  
Behind them, Kurusu lets out a tortured cry. The others, seemingly everyone on this godforsaken plane, are all paying attention to Kurusu. They’re talking gently to him, using him as a center for their calm.  
  
In their tiny, cramped row, Jack and Jinguuji and Rei are alone. With the serenity only Rei could have in the air, Rei leans over them both, putting his head between theirs. This close, bolstered by the flame, Rei’s body looks almost solid. Jack aches to touch him, to bury his face in Rei’s neck. When he turns his face, though, there is nothing but the image of him.  
  
Jinguuji is there, and real, and holding his hand so tightly he can feel his bones creak. Jinguuji is singing between shaking breaths, and doesn’t stop even as the turbulence evens out into a quiet sky.  
  
Around them, the plane is filled with murmurs, people checking themselves over. Some laugh with relief. Someone retches, and the ensuing small chaos indicates it is Kurusu. Jack doesn’t turn to see. Jack is focused on Rei and Jinguuji, the two of them beside him and over him.  
  
Rei is just a picture, a shadow thrown by flame. Jinguuji is alive and trembling.  
  
Slowly, slowly, the atmosphere in the plane calms. Jinguuji eases down with it, until he is just barely murmuring a song under the great, white rush of the plane’s engines. Jinguuji’s grip on Jack’s hand softens until he has all but let go. His palm is clammy. Jack brushes his fingertips over Jinguuji’s knuckles and finds they are soft.   
  
To Jack’s surprise, Jinguuji returns the motion, shuddery and slow. He realizes belatedly that it’s an acknowledgment.   
  
Rei smiles. He places his hand over Jack’s and Jinguuji’s together. He kneels between them, their knees passing through his chest.  
  
For as long as Jinguuji continues to sing, that is where he stays.  
  
Jack feels Jinguuji’s hand tighten and flex in his when the plane begins its final descent. As soon as its tires touch the tarmac and the pressure of the plane slowing pulls them forward in their seats, Jinguuji lets go of Jack. He presses his palms together in his lap, rubbing them like he’s trying to get warm.   
  
With a shaky breath, Jinguuji stops singing. Rei dissipates into the dull glow of the cabin lights. Jack feels the cold creep in on him, too. He stuffs his hands into his pockets to keep from reaching for Jinguuji.  
  
The plane stops. The passengers rise. Jinguuji stays down until Jack has moved out into the aisle to make room for him. Jack watches him transform from something terrified and vulnerable back into the confident, handsome fiction he’d always known. Jinguuji runs a hand over his hair, smoothing it, and gives Jack an insouciant smile before turning back to call out, “Syo-chan, why do you look so green?”  
  
“I hate you,” mumbles Syo. “You probably slept through the whole thing again.”  
  
Jinguuji just laughs. “Yep, guess so.”  
  
Out of all of them, the band and the coordinators and the handlers and the bodyguards, the only one to give Jinguuji a sharp look is Hijirikawa. Then again, his face is normally so serious that it’s hard for Jack to tell if he’s suspicious or simply unamused.  
  
Jack just grabs his duffel when he gets the chance and walks off the plane, Jinguuji and the others behind him. He can hear Jinguuji chatting mildly with the others. He sounds normal.   
  
Jack understands why Jinguuji might want to hide the truth from his bandmates, but that doesn’t stop him from being annoyed. He isn’t so much annoyed at Jinguuji as the concept of him suffering that way on every flight, alone. Jinguuji’s insincerity and distance don’t endear him to Jack. Apparently, he doesn’t let STARISH in, either.  
  
It chews at Jack, as they head from the airport back to the grounds of the academy. Jack is swept along in the motion even though he has nowhere to stay. Nobody asks him where he’s going, so he just follows. Here, there is a fine layer of snow on the ground, but the night is clear. The storms won’t hit until the morning, or maybe later. In the pale moonlight, the ground seems to glow.  
  
When Jinguuji says, “I’m not tired. I’m gonna hit the gym,” Jack hangs back. He doesn’t enter the dorms, but skirts them, waiting for Jinguuji to emerge.  
  
He isn’t surprised when Jinguuji comes outside without having changed. He’s still in his jeans and sweatshirt from the plane, his hair loose around his shoulders.  
  
Jinguuji gives him a wary look when he sees him. “Cesshi didn’t tell you where to go?”  
  
“I didn’t ask,” says Jack.   
  
“I’ll go check,” says Jinguuji, and turns to go back inside.  
  
Jack says, “Why did you sing.” He means it to come out like a question, but his voice drops as Jinguuji stops walking.  
  
“It’s what you wanted, right?” asks Jinguuji, looking over his shoulder. His breath is a plume of steam.  
  
Jack frowns. The nice coat Jinguuji got him is keeping his body warm, but his ears are beginning to sting with cold. “Why did you sing then?”  
  
Jinguuji shrugs. “I figured you’d want to see him. If the plane went down.”  
  
Jack falls silent, stares.  
  
Jinguuji goes back inside.  
  
The next person to come out is a bodyguard, come to guide Jack to the visitors’ quarters in another building. He follows, crunching through the delicate snow. He’s given the key to a room with attached bathroom, clean white walls and white carpet. The linens, the curtains, the lampshades are all white. The room feels sterile. Temporary.   
  
He sits on the end of the bed and desperately wants a drink to get himself to sleep.  
  
Instead, he stares at the unbroken whiteness of the room and thinks, _Ren really thought he was going to die._  
  
He remembers reading something, in the first haze of research, in that internet café in Australia. Jinguuji’s mother, an idol herself, perished in a plane crash more than a decade ago. It isn’t common knowledge, not then or now, but it was from her that Jinguuji got his looks. Especially that fiery hair.  
  
Jack wonders if Jinguuji had thought they’d finally gone to follow his mother. And his first instinct was to give his last breaths to Jack. To give him that most ultimate, desperate gift.  
  
And then, when the plane landed, he pulled the old persona on and teased Kurusu.  
  
Jinguuji, the liar, has them all fooled. He’s a master of the normalcy Jack fights to wear. The kind of man that can pull off a lie so complete isn’t naive. He isn’t a kid. Jinguuji is grown.  
  
Jack wants viciously to get up under that mask. To see Jinguuji vulnerable again. To make him shake.  
  
He pushes himself up and washes his face in the bathroom sink. Exhaustion is pulling at his eyes and shoulders. He knew Jinguuji wasn’t going to the gym by the clothes he was wearing when he came out of the dorms. He wants to go find him. Really, deeply, _find_ him.  
  
Jack makes himself go to bed. Vacillating between rage and guilt and grief and desire isn’t any easier when his self-control is worn thin by lack of sleep. He changes out of the clothes he wore on the plane. He turns out the light so the white blankness of the room goes pitch black with nothing but the afterimage of the light in the bulb slowly dying. He listens to the sound of the heater pumping warm air into the room.  
  
He dreams of the plane crashing, and of Jinguuji rising from the wreckage wreathed in fire, snow settling on his shoulders and in his hair.  
  


* * *

  
  
In the morning, Jack answers a knock at his door to find Aijima.  
  
“We should maybe get you a phone, shouldn’t we?” he says, by way of greeting.  
  
“It’s alright,” says Jack. “Good morning.”  
  
“Yes! Good morning. Haruka has finished the song for Lieutenant Fukai and I have come tell you.” He beams, spreading his arms out wide in the hallway. “Come, let’s have breakfast and we can listen to her play it.”  
  
Jack feels the blood rush to his head. His hold on the doorknob is the only thing keeping him steady. “Are - are you going to sing it then?”  
  
“Oh, no.” Aijima shakes his head, his smile unchanged. “No, we must come together to write the lyrics first.” He lays his hand over the pendant hanging from his neck. “In order to help the Lieutenant and Yukikaze-san come home, the full power of STARISH has to come together. We’ll all write the words and we’ll all sing them.”  
  
Jack winces, stepping back. When Aijima obliges him and comes inside, he shuts the door. “That’s too many people.”  
  
Aijima blinks, uncomprehending. “I’m sorry?”  
  
“You haven’t told any of the others, have you? Even your composer wrote the song without knowing the truth. I don’t want to involve more people in his business than I have to.”  
  
Aijima’s smile softens. “We’re the strongest when we’re together. That’s why the Muses guided me here, to Haruka and to the others.” He steps closer, looking earnestly up into Jack’s eyes. “If you would prefer that I talk to them about it, I’ll happily spare you.”  
  
Jack clears his throat. “No. If it has to be all of you, then. Then I’ll talk to them.”  
  
“Great! The first time we’re going to be together again, all of us, is going to be very late tonight. Until then, come with me. Let’s eat and catch a moment with Haruka before I have to go as well.”  
  
Jack runs his hand through his hair. “Alright, yeah.”  
  


* * *

  
  
The room in which they meet Nanami is a huge, sunlit atrium, painted in pale blues and grays. Two spiral staircases and a viewing balcony stretch over the far wall. Again, despite the brightness of her coloring, Nanami appears dwarfed by her surroundings and her clothes. It’s as though she’s barely in the room at all, a configuration of dust motes illuminated in the glare off the snow.  
  
Jack is grateful that the room is warm. His arms and neck are coated in goosebumps, and have been since Aijima announced that the song had been written. He’s thrilled. Apprehensive, but thrilled. Rei might be able to rest.  
  
And yet, he knows that, with this temporary purpose gone from his life, there will be nothing left for him but to go back to Australia, to the home he bought for himself and the woodshed he built and nights filled with terror in his dreams. He can feel it pressing down on him, equal parts exhaustion and relief.  
  
Nanami seats herself at a mahogany grand piano so polished that Jack can see his reflection in the curve of its body. Rei is beside him in his reflection, anticipatory. He wants to turn to him, but he knows that Rei is even less substantial than Nanami herself.   
  
Nanami begins to play.  
  
There is no fire in Jack’s breast but an immense feeling of longing settles over him. The melody is simple, but the arrangement is intricate, a perpetual drawing-down. Like Nanami, and her song, are the center of the universe, a beacon with inescapable gravity.  
  
Rei is in the room with him, pressed to the piano, his eyes closed, his brow drawn in fierce concentration. Nanami has almost made him solid. Jack can see the hunch in his shoulders, the way his fingers clutch at the body of the piano so hard that his knuckles are white. When the song ends, he reaches for her. Jack almost wants to ask her to play it again, but some part of him knows it won’t be enough. Not until they sing.  
  
With silent sorrow, he lets Rei fade.  
  
Nanami looks up and smiles hopefully at him. “I think this will help your friend.”  
  
Jack nods, his throat too dry to produce a word.  
  
“It’s perfect,” says Aijima, crossing the room to stand behind Nanami. He lifts the sheet music from the piano reverently.  
  
Nanami, a shell with inhuman eyes, a shed skin, a vessel, turns her head toward him and flushes. “Cecil-san,” she breathes, like a prayer.  
  
Aijima’s expression is nothing but love. Jack wonders if it’s for her, or if she gets him closest to his goddesses and that’s her only use. Jack turns his gaze to the window beside him, looking out into the snowy morning. It’s so still outside, ice clinging to the bare skeletons of trees. No footprints, human nor animal, mar the snow.  
  
Aijima says, “Ah, I do hate to run, but I have to get going. Would you like to keep the sheets, Bukhar-san?”  
  
Jack turns, looking down at the papers in Aijima’s outstretched hand. He knows that, to Aijima, this is a gesture of goodwill. So he accepts it, taking the pages with a quiet, “Thank you.”  
  
“I’ll be back soon, I promise,” says Aijima. “And tonight, we’ll start writing.”  
  
Jack looks down at the sheet music in his hands and nods. “Alright.”  
  
As Aijima leaves, Nanami rises from the piano bench. She comes to Jack, her hands folded in front of her.  
  
“I’m sorry it took me so long,” she says, sitting down in a nearby chair. “I wanted it to be right.”  
  
Jack gives her a small smile. It feels strange on his mouth. “I think it is.”  
  
She breathes a sigh of relief, tilting her head to the side. Her hair curls around her jaw. “You know best, Bukhar-san. I hope your friend will be happy.”  
  
“I… Yeah.” He looks down at the sheet music. Nanami’s musical notation is precise and feminine. The song is untitled, with space between the bars for lyrics.  
  
Nanami doesn’t speak for a long time, letting him read. Then, with a small, tentative voice, like he might somehow refuse her, she asks, “Would you like me to play it again?”  
  
Jack nods without looking at her. “I would. Thank you.”  
  
She gives him a warm smile, rising gracefully. She settles again at the piano without taking the sheet music. She doesn’t need it.  
  
The music fills the room a second time. Jack makes himself breathe.  
  


* * *

  
  
The grounds owned by Shining Agency are huge and sprawling. The agency owns an academy, acre upon acre of parkland, a man-made lake, dormitories for students as well as producing artists, a recording space, multiple practice rooms, and top-level control rooms for security staff. They are crisscrossed with service roads and groomed lanes, with paths through the forest and a lovely promenade by the water. The students are permitted through the main gates but prevented from reaching the recording artists’ dormitories by mid-level guard posts that check ID.  
  
Jack doesn’t pass them, because he doesn’t think he has a way to get back in. Saying ‘I’m with Aijima’, he predicts, would not get him desirable results. Instead, he walks the paths reserved for the graduates of the academy to pass the time. They are broad and pretty, and lined with trees laden with snow. There hasn’t been a wet enough freeze for him to worry about icicles overhead. Instead, soft clumps of snow are the only threat.  
  
The storm they’d been fleeing by plane caught up with them while they slept, dumping enough snow on the grounds to build a coat two fingers thick. The morning sun burned away any clouds, and Jack is warm enough as he walks to open up his coat.   
  
In the end, he’d left after Nanami played her song a second time. At her insistence, he took the sheet music and deposited it in his room. In a fit of paranoia, he’d tucked the pages inside his duffel, folded into a clean shirt. If anyone came by to clean the room, he didn’t want them stumbling over something they might try to sell.   
  
And then, without a companion, flesh or figment, he’d set out into the late morning to keep himself busy. He walks, now, unhurried and observant. Saotome is the kind of successful man that likes to show it in his architecture, so Jack has plenty of grand buildings to circle.  
  
As he walks, he considers his current predicament. The song has been born, and will be shaped over the coming days by seven sets of hands. To prepare them, Jack must tell them, all of them, about Rei. Rei, who has been his, private and terrifying and guilt-inducing. If all of them were to accept the truth quite as readily as Aijima and Jinguuji, Jack doesn’t know if he’d be relieved or insulted.  
  
The business of having strangers draw Rei home should not chafe him like it does, he knows. But their power over him, over Rei and Jack both, verges on the cruel. Aijima can hear Rei when he speaks, and yet hasn’t sung him into existence to talk to him. If Jack could only do that, he’d bring Rei back just to listen. Jinguuji was the original beacon that brought them to Japan, but he flirted and quipped and rubbed against all of the rawest parts of Jack without knowing.   
  
It occurs to Jack that he might have been an asshole. To Jinguuji, at the least.  
  
It also occurs to Jack that he doesn’t much care.  
  
And it is then, as he has the thought and feels the hollow warmth of self-recognition (because acknowledging oneself as an asshole and resolving not to be bothered by it carries with it equal parts revelation and revulsion) that he hears Jinguuji’s voice. It’s indicative of Jack’s luck and the ubiquity of Jinguuji’s presence when he is least wanted.  
  
Jinguuji is singing. Despite himself, Jack looks down to see the flame at his breast.  
  
He sighs, and follows the sound of Jinguuji’s voice. He won’t bother him, won’t interrupt. But there must be a place to listen.  
  
Jack hears Jinguuji stop, and a more irritated voice - Kurusu, he thinks - saying, “Why do we have to practice out here when it’s so _cold?_ ”  
  
Ichinose answers smoothly, “Because the Snow Bunny Festival stage is outdoors, too. We’ll be performing in colder weather than this. The change in temperature can affect the accuracy of your pitch, especially when you start breathing hard.”  
  
“Ichii, if you want to breathe heavy in the snow, we need some ladies to assist,” purrs Jinguuji.  
  
“Oh my _God_ ,” groans Kurusu.  
  
Jack pauses, shielded from their view by a wall. The insinuation Jinguuji made sends prickles down his spine. He thinks, _he’s lying._  
  
Moments later, goaded by an insistent Ichinose, Jinguuji resumes singing. He is joined by Kurusu and Ichinose, and they practice scales and arpeggios. Compared to Ichinose, Jinguuji and Kurusu have a pitifully limited vocal range, but it sounds like Ichinose is slowing it up so they can keep pace.   
  
Jack remains, hiding by the corner of the building out of their view, because any hint of Jinguuji’s voice sets him alight. Rei leans against the wall beside him. Jack knows the hunch in his posture, a tell that he’s affecting boredom to cover his nerves. Rei watches the ground as he listens, one hand absently pressed to his chest to hold the fire that flickers there.  
  
Rei, too, is waiting for the words to call him home.  
  
Instead, the both of them are here, listening to vocal exercises and a periodic cycle of complaint and reproach. The voices they hear are the key, somehow, to their mutual freedom. In these moments, though, the singers sound like nothing but ordinary boys.  
  
Eventually, Ichinose gives up on the other two and they all troop inside. Jack counts to two hundred in his head before pushing away from the wall. The cold of the brick had seeped into him, quiet and creeping. Without Jinguuji’s voice to warm him, he feels it down through his bones. He breaks into a brisk walk to warm himself up, taking the long way back through the woods to try to ensure he won’t run into another member of STARISH.  
  
It’s disturbing to him, the way he’s getting used to Rei fading away before him. How he’s starting to take Rei’s appearance for granted. When he manifests, now, Rei is no longer confined to Jack’s peripheral vision. He is almost, almost there. He is almost, almost gone forever.  
  
Walking warms Jack’s core again. He keeps his hands shoved into the pockets of his coat, but his posture relaxes. His lungs warm up, his breathing evening out. He feels the urge to break into a run, but doesn’t know where he’d even go. The familiar rhythms of physical training nag at him, surfacing from somewhere deep in his memory. The last time he’d run, it had been beside Jinguuji in the early morning, a last-ditch effort not to drink. Jinguuji, panting, his head bowed forward, a dark V of sweat between his shoulders.  
  
Jinguuji, soaking through his towel, pushing into Jack’s space because he’d seen Rei.  
  
Jinguuji, sitting cross-legged on his bed, damp and warm, telling Jack that he really just needed to get laid.  
  
Jack hunches his shoulders and makes a decision. He _has_ to clear his mind.  
  
He ends up in the gym, twenty minutes later, changed into workout clothes and running intervals on a treadmill. The sprints burn his thighs. The machine whirrs, thumping with every footfall. Jack has to focus on his breathing and his body. He feels like he can trace his blood through every vein.  
  
After he steps off, his legs weak as jelly, he drops to the mats to stretch. It’s embarrassing, the way he can’t even reach his toes. He doesn’t remember the last time he’d taken the time to really stretch. He’s more than aware of the way he’s softened around the middle.  
  
Is he going to live after Rei is gone, or is he going to drink until he follows him?  
  
It feels pretty good to run until his legs can’t work any more. The pinging of his muscles, reminding him of overheated metal cooling back into position, is somehow invigorating. He feels awake like he hasn’t in months.  
  
Rei is going to be gone forever, not even a figment or a haunting or whatever the hell he is. Jack will miss him with every fiber of who he was and is and will be.  
  
He rolls, dropping himself into push-up position, and starts in. He counts under his breath. This, at least, is familiar. He did it in hotel rooms, waiting for his chance to see STARISH in person. There was a time when he could race a recruit to fifty and make it without feeling any burn, and he’s slowly getting back there. His hair, too long, shaggy, falls around his face in damp spikes, clings to his neck.  
  
There is a hole inside of Jack, straining with the size of the losses in the escape from Fairy. The pilots that guarded the crew as they slipped through the wormhole, the men and women that ensured their safety with their lives. It aches inside him, every moment he lets it. He knows he should have been _with_ them. He should have been fighting, should have destroyed as many JAM as he could. Even if it had meant nothing, even if it had changed nothing, he should have been with them.  
  
Jack knows that there is nothing he could have done to keep Rei out of Yukikaze, short of sedating him and tying him down. Even then, somehow, that plane would have retrieved him. They were two parts of a whole. They were the reason Jack had survived. Even now, in silhouette, Jack can sometimes sense Yukikaze there with Rei, like a separate consciousness in the same non-reality that holds Rei captive.  
  
As far as insane concepts go, it’s easier to swallow than most of the others he believes.  
  
Jack does push-ups until his arms give out. He gives himself a break, then does it again. And again. It leaves him feeling cleaner, somehow, this little piece of determination. He knows he’ll be sore and for once he looks forward to it. He’s planning for tomorrow, when STARISH will know about Rei and they’ll write the words to call Rei home. What Jack will do is wait, relishing in the soreness of his muscles, having something to focus on other than the throbbing of his heart.  
  
He lifts weights. He does crunches. He stretches again and again, feeling his muscles loosen up.  
  
He has a lot of work to do, if his body is going to be anything like it was. As he walks to the shower, Jack starts to make plans. Under the water, hidden by steam, he feels more alert than he has since he set foot on Earth.  
  
In a few days, he’s going to go back to his house in Australia. He’s going to be alone for the first time. Really, sincerely, irrevocably alone. He’s going to want to follow Rei, he knows it. But his body, this body, has so much life left in it. If his body had given up on living, Jack wouldn’t have felt the itch to come back to the gym. He wouldn’t have pushed so hard, wouldn’t have rejoiced in sprinting.  
  
If he’d really given up, he wouldn’t want Jinguuji so fiercely.  
  
Finally, finally he indulges in wanting Jinguuji. The planes of his body, the curls in his hair, the way the smell of his skin mixes with his cologne and seeps, warm, from beneath his shirts. The way his clothes always look so soft and a little too big.  
  
Jack is a selfish asshole who doesn’t want to die. He’s alone, now, nobody to sing Rei into witnessing him. This is how it will be, when Rei is gone.  
  
Jack only realizes he’s crying when he sucks in a breath that tastes like salt. He presses his face to his arm and sobs.  
  


* * *

  
  
The members of STARISH sit together like pieces of a puzzle. The seven of them array themselves on the furniture in Aijima’s room, leaving the sole chair for Nanami.  
  
Jack’s hands are clammy around the sheet music. It’s nearly midnight, and Ittoki at the very least has a wake-up call scheduled for four in the morning. He’s dozing with his cheek on Shinomiya’s shoulder, offered because Shinomiya’s coat is softest.  
  
Jack speaks softly, standing before them.  
  
“I’ve come to ask a favor.”  
  
Aijima nods encouragingly. Nanami, from her throne, smiles.  
  
“Nanami-san has already been kind enough to write a song for me. I… I hope you can complete it, to bring my friend home.”  
  
Jack pauses, waiting for questions or derision. None come, and he realizes he hadn’t thought past this point, about what to tell them.  
  
Jinguuji presses his lips together on a slow-growing smile. He pushes himself up and comes to stand beside Jack. “It’s breaking contract. A song that all of us write together, that we aren’t going to sell. We aren’t going to sing it for anyone but him.”  
  
Jack grits his teeth, staring at Jinguuji. All he can say is, “That’s right.”  
  
“Then,” says Ichinose softly, “it must be for a very good reason.”  
  
Jack blinks, the tension starting to loosen from his shoulders. He swallows, opens his mouth. Jinguuji puts his hand on Jack’s chest and murmurs, “May I?”  
  
Jack glances to Aijima, who says, “I think it’s better if Ren does it, don’t you?”  
  
“Does what?” asks Kurusu, the beginnings of a frown tugging at his mouth.  
  
“My friend. He’s not alive anymore,” says Jack, catching Jinguuji by the wrist to make him remove his hand. “But he keeps appearing to me. He needs to come home.”  
  
Jinguuji’s wrist is bony in his grip. He can get his whole hand around it. His skin is so hot.  
  
Kurusu goes pale. “He’s a _ghost_?”  
  
“That’s rude,” says Hijirikawa.   
  
“Just do it,” mumbles Jack, letting go of Jinguuji’s wrist.  
  
Jinguuji hums, and leans in to sing softly in his ear. Jack knows he’s being tortured. The heat of Jinguuji’s breath, the soft percussion of his tongue against his teeth so close he can feel them. He was an asshole to Jinguuji before, and Jinguuji knows it. Now, Jinguuji is getting him back.  
  
Jack should kick Jinguuji’s knees out and let him land on his pretty face. But there’s that treacherous part of Jack that wants to beat him to the floor, and that’s the part that’s overpowering his anger.  
  
Rei shifts into visibility, Jinguuji’s fire held in one hand. His expression is pure skepticism, directed straight at Jinguuji.  
  
“Holy cats!” cries Kurusu. “He really is a ghost!”  
  
“Kurusu,” snaps Hijirikawa. “That’s not funny.”  
  
“I’m just not used to ghosts, okay?” Kurusu says, holding his hands up defensively. “I wasn’t expecting him to just show up out of nowhere!”  
  
Jinguuji is chuckling while he sings. Like this is funny.  
  
“I’m sorry,” says Shinomiya softly. “I don’t see anything. Am I supposed to see something?”  
  
“A very faint glow, right?” says Ittoki. “Kind of right next to Bukhar-san.”  
  
Aijima shakes his head, and picks up Jinguuji’s song along with him. It’s an older single of theirs, something about true love. Aijima waves his hand, prompting the others to join in.  
  
Only once Shinomiya has added his voice does he startle, his eyes going wide.  
  
Rei looks fairly awkward, ducking his head. He never did like being the center of attention. The flame against his chest has shoots of color running through it like little flares.   
  
Rei looks relieved to be fading when the song ends.  
  
Jack elbows Jinguuji. He catches him in the ribs, gets him to back off. Jinguuji just coughs and rubs at his side.  
  
That small gesture of violence brings the other singers back to the present. It sparks shame down Jack’s spine, but he doesn’t feel like apologizing.  
  
“Okay, so. So we need to write the words that will guide him back home,” says Ichinose, having recovered most quickly. “But where is he?”  
  
Jack closes his eyes, bracing himself. “Somewhere between here and Fairy.”  
  
Not one of them protests that Fairy isn’t real.  
  
Not one.  
  
Slowly, Jack opens his eyes again.  
  
“May we see the sheet music?” asks Ittoki. He’s on his feet, at a respectful distance, looking gentle as a lamb. “We’d like to get started as soon as possible.”  
  
Jack passes the sheets to Ittoki, still staring. He waits for the other shoe, for some protest or division.   
  
Ittoki takes two steps backwards and sinks back down on the side of Aijima’s bed. Shinomiya and Ichinose, by his sides, lean in. Kurusu scrambles up on the bed behind them. Hijirikawa leans respectfully over Shinomiya from the side. Jinguuji drapes himself over Ichinose.   
  
Aijima beams at Jack, then reaches out to touch Nanami’s hand.  
  
STARISH erupts in praise for their composer. Even without hearing the music, they know it’s a beautiful song. Ittoki’s eyes are bright, all trace of exhaustion gone from them, as he leaps up to grab a pencil.  
  
Jinguuji catches him by the back of his waistband. Ichinose says, “You can’t work on this all night.”  
  
“But he’s _trapped_ there!” Ittoki protests, turning big eyes on Ichinose.  
  
Sagely, Hijirikawa says, “Which is exactly why we ought to sleep on it. We must write this correctly.”  
  
“The Muses will aid us,” says Aijima, his hand pressed to his pendant. “All of us, together.”  
  
“So, we’re agreed, then? It _is_ breaking contract,” says Ichinose.  
  
“Nanami already started it!” says Ittoki.  
  
Nanami flushes. “I, but. But, I just wanted to help.”  
  
“So do we, little lamb,” says Jinguuji softly. “We’re all in now.”  
  
“Okay. So we’ll do it secretly,” says Ichinose, rubbing his chin.  
  
Shinomiya laughs. “What fun. Here, I can keep the sheets for now. I don’t have anything in the morning tomorrow.”  
  
They pass the music to him, and he zips the pages into his coat against his chest, near his heart. Reverently, like they need the heat of his body.  
  
“Good, thank you. Now. Bed, Otoya,” says Ichinose, rising.  
  
Ever the obedient puppy, Ittoki follows suit, yawning. He smiles at Jack as he passes. “We’ll be as fast as we can. We’ll do it right. Please tell him, if you can.”  
  
“He knows,” says Aijima, before Jack can answer.  
  
“Oh,” murmurs Ittoki. “Okay.”  
  
They file out past Jack like that, each of them telling him goodnight with utmost respect. Shinomiya and Kurusu offer to escort Nanami to the elevator to her room. She accepts shyly, her voice trailing as they move down the hall.  
  
Aijima walks Jack to the door. “Thank you. I promise you that your long journey will soon be at an end.”  
  
Jack is too tired to do anything but nod.  
  
In the hall, Hijirikawa is standing with his arms crossed over his chest. Hijirikawa’s expression is always cold, somehow foreboding. Jack knows it’s a defensive coldness; he’s seen it on hundreds of young men and women just like him. Fragile, and hiding it.   
  
“I beg your pardon for suggesting we wait another night,” says Hijirikawa, dropping his arms to his sides and lowering his head in a bow. “I can’t presume to know how you are feeling, but I can imagine that it is difficult.”  
  
Jack lets out a slow breath. “Thank you,” he says softly.  
  
The severe, angular cut of Hijirikawa’s hair actually makes his face look softer when he raises his head. “I appreciate also that you are keeping Ren in check, though I know it’s far from your responsibility.”  
  
“In check?” echoes Jack, raising his eyebrows.  
  
Hijirikawa sighs, looking long-suffering. “We’ve all agreed to break our contracts to bring your friend back, and none of us is going to change his mind about it. But one broken rule does not forgive another, and Ren tends toward self-destructive pigtail-pulling. I’m asking you to endure his interest for just a short while longer.” He smiles, not even showing a thin sliver of his teeth. “It won’t affect the power of his lyrics. Please don’t worry.”  
  
Jack closes his eyes, running his hand over his face. “Right,” he says, because it’s far too late, he’s too tired to try to parse whatever it is Hijirikawa is trying to tell him.  
  
“Have a good night, Bukhar-san,” says Hijirikawa.   
  
Jack nods to him, and walks past him. He checks around corners for other lurking boy band members, but somehow manages to get to his room without another encounter.  
  
He heads to the bathroom to brush his teeth. As he looks at his reflection in the mirror, he tries to work up enough bile to mumble derogatory things about bubble-headed singers who are as capricious as they are opaque, but the whole experience has been so draining that he can’t do anything more than snort at himself.  
  
They’re breaking the rules for him. No, not for him. For Rei.  
  
To Jack, Rei is worth thousands of dollars in fines, or jail time, or whatever it is those kids will get if someone catches them. He’d just as happily let STARISH blame him for coercing them to break the rules. He’d welcome it. He’ll pay all of their fines, he’ll serve all the time, if only Rei wouldn’t have to haunt him for the rest of his wretched life.  
  
Rei, who looked a little surprised and a little sheepish to still be around, a vision in a circle of singers. A shooting star, lit with every color and looking so pale, so drab in his flight suit. The endless depths of his eyes made so flat in resurrection.  
  
Rei, who deserves nothing more than to come home.  
  
Jack doesn’t know what he’ll do if this doesn’t work. It has to work.  
  
More importantly, he has to believe it will work. He has to believe in the Muses, and in Aijima, and in Nanami. If his doubt were to insult them, the failure would be all his.  
  
Jack has never lived a life outside of scientific absolutes. Even to the end, he believed the JAM were real, their advancements nothing more than technology and science. He never once thought they were magic, despite the name of their godforsaken planet. Their ability to mimic the body and voice of any human they came across was due to their vast wealth of knowledge. They weren’t superstitions, they weren’t shadows in the night, they weren’t gods.  
  
But the Muses. The way Aijima speaks of them, they are goddesses, the mystical forces that brought a prince from his homeland to a music agency of all places, to do good in the world. The Muses, and the effect that STARISH have as the vessels of the Muses, defy Jack’s scientific understanding.  
  
Rei, perhaps, could be explained by some variety of quantum physics, string theory, alternate universes colliding. The strange properties of wormholes and portals, time dilation, _something_. But Jinguuji’s voice traversing that divide, and what’s more, igniting a fire that caused Rei’s selective appearances to become more stable?  
  
Maybe it’s possible, through an understanding of the universe not even known to the wise and greedy JAM. Or maybe Jack is dealing with magic, real magic.   
  
Or. The constant, ever-present possibility in the back of Jack’s head could be true, too. He’s still on Fairy, and this is a JAM-induced hallucination. They’re studying him to see what he’ll do.  
  
More and more, that seems real. It would explain Nanami’s terrifying, unreal eyes. It would explain Rei’s appearances to him, as the JAM _had him_ for long enough to learn his body and his voice. From Rei and the other pilots they’d lost, the JAM could replicate the human form, could invent new ones with heat and breath. They could make Jinguuji exactly the way Jack wanted him. Beautiful and different and just enough of a puzzle for Jack to want to dig into.  
  
Jack feels panic creep up on him, making his heart race.  
  
Of course it isn’t true. Why would the JAM study him? Why would they create this fantastic illusion for an alcoholic sad sack without ever plumbing his mind for more of the way that the world works? What secrets of humanity could Jack really divulge, except perhaps the depth to which a man could become obsessed?  
  
He swallows, shakes his head, sighs. Jack is quite sure, by this point, that there is nothing the JAM could want with him as a specimen. Nothing, at least, that they couldn’t get from someone more fitting to their purpose.  
  
The adrenaline in his system urges him to make sure.  
  
He brushes his teeth, mulling it over. A sudden act of violence, maybe, to catch them off their guard. But the JAM are used to violence from humans. They’re masters of controlling it, of harnessing man’s greed.  
  
No, Jack will need something else.  
  
He spits into the sink and lets his mind wander, as it so often does, to Jinguuji.  
  
If the JAM have invented Jinguuji, Jack will find them out. And if they haven’t, it’ll be a good lesson for Jinguuji to keep his hands to himself.  
  
Jack can’t get back into the artists’ dorms without an escort, especially not in the middle of the night. So he must wait until morning, until he can corner Jinguuji.  
  
He’ll have to be sure. For Rei, he’ll be sure.  
  


* * *

  
  
It’s a quarter past five in the morning and Jinguuji is running.  
  
Jack watches him from the entrance of the gym. He’s in workout clothes, camouflage for himself. And he can feel his second thoughts creeping up.  
  
If this is all an illusion, the JAM must have enough data on humans to simulate a reaction to anything Jack could possibly do. They’d observed everyone from the moment they invaded Fairy, building a false world and sometimes even the people in it.  
  
If this isn’t an illusion, Jack is about to be even more of an asshole to a guy who doesn’t deserve it.  
  
If this isn’t an illusion and Jack alienates Jinguuji, makes Jinguuji dislike him even more deeply, then the song might not work. And it would be Jack’s fault.  
  
Jack presses his hand to his forehead and grips a rough handful of his own hair. He’s been insane since the moment he saw Rei, and he almost let it hurt someone else. JAM or not, real or not, Jack has got to start squaring his actions with his own conscience again.  
  
“Jinguuji,” he says, just barely audible over the whir of the treadmill.  
  
Jinguuji glances over his shoulder. He hits a button on the panel of the treadmill and steps off while it slows down.  
  
“Good morning, sunshine,” he says. His tone is light, but his body posture is wary, closed off. He’s panting, catching his breath.  
  
Jack takes a breath, lets it out through his nose. “I’m sorry for the way I’ve been acting.”  
  
Jinguuji blinks. “That’s not — ”  
  
“And thank you.” Jack bows his head, makes his shoulders follow. “For what you’re doing for Rei.”  
  
“For you both,” says Jinguuji. “For the Lieutenant and for you.”  
  
Jack closes his eyes. “Right. Thank you.”  
  
“No, I — hn.” Jinguuji’s breath is slowing back down to a normal rate. Jack straightens up.  
  
Jinguuji is fidgeting with his water bottle, opening and closing the cap over and over. His shoulders have dropped, his weight resting over one hip. He’s watching his own hands, not Jack. “We don’t need your thanks. Or your apologies.”  
  
Jack bites the inside of his cheek to keep from snapping at him. “I’m only talking to you.”  
  
“You haven’t done anything worth apologizing over,”  says Jinguuji. “I’d have done the same things.”  
  
“You,” breathes Jack, “don’t know that for certain.”  
  
“Whatever,” says Jinguuji. He closes the water bottle and takes a step back toward the treadmill. “I’ve gotta get moving.”  
  
Jack watches Jinguuji turn away from him. The whirr of the machine starts back up, punctuated by the rhythmic percussion of his footfalls. His breath is measured, his ponytail bobs, the back of his shirt sticks to his shoulders.  
  
How Jack could ever have thought this beautiful, infuriating young man was an illusion is beyond him.  
  
Jack shakes his head, clearing it, and moves to the weights. He tries to recapture the feeling of balance he had when he’d worked out the day before. He focuses on his legs, doing reps until his thighs shake. He stretches, then does them again. He focuses on the feeling of blood pumping through his muscles, and the pleasant soreness in his arms reminding him that he’d beat his record for push-ups the day before.  
  
At some point, Jinguuji joins him. He isn’t sure exactly when it is, but he’s aware of nodding to Jinguuji as he passes him on the way to the mats to stretch. There’s nothing but the soft sound of the gym television telling them the news. The snow isn’t going to stop coming down, not for hours.  
  
Jinguuji heads toward the showers.  
  
Jack decides he’ll just go back and clean up in his room.  
  
The jog through the icy morning turns the sweat on his neck to frost. By the time he makes it to the visitors’ quarters he’s shivering. It doesn’t stop until he’s in the hottest shower he can stand, feeling the water turn tepid by the time it hits his feet. Even the steam doesn’t blanket the bathroom in thick heat like it usually does.  
  
Jack uses the tiny bathroom blowdryer to get the water out of his hair, then dresses in jeans and a sweater and thick socks. He sits by the heater, his back to the window, shutting the snow out.  
  
Only then does he warm up enough to sleep.  
  


* * *

  
  
Jack wakes to the sound of knocking.  
  
He rises, heart in his throat, expecting Aijima telling him the lyrics are done, or worse, some unknown telling him that they’ve been caught. The door to the room he’s staying in has no peephole.  
  
He swallows, and opens the door.  
  
Jinguuji stands before him, snow in his hair. “What did I do to piss the Lieutenant off?” he asks, his brows drawn together.  
  
Jack gapes, then steps back, holding the door open. “Uh. Come in.”  
  
Jinguuji shifts from foot to foot, then steps past him. His hands are shoved into his coat pockets. “Thanks.”  
  
“What do you mean, piss him off?” asks Jack, shutting the door.  
  
“Hell, I don’t know,” says Jinguuji, running his hand over his hair. “He just. He shows up every time I sing, now, even if it’s in the shower. And he just _looks_ at me, like I’m doing something wrong.”  
  
Jack can’t help it. He smiles. When Jinguuji makes a sound of anguish, he says, “No, that’s just the way he is.”  
  
Jinguuji’s eyebrows are so close and so high that they have practically become one. “Be serious.”  
  
“I am. Rei’s never been good with people. That’s his default expression.” Jack sinks into the chair by the window again, and is less surprised than he’s expecting to be when Jinguuji just sits on the edge of his bed. “I don’t know why he’s coming to you more often now, but if he were upset with you, I think he’d show you his back, not his face.”  
  
Jinguuji cradles his head in his hands. “I was trying to write my part of his song.”  
  
Jack swallows. “Oh.”  
  
“It makes sense, he’d want to know how it’s going, right?” mumbles Jinguuji into his hands. “It’s only the most important song he’ll ever hear.”  
  
“And he trusts you,” says Jack softly, seeing the tension bunching up between Jinguuji’s shoulders. “We both trust you.”  
  
Jinguuji lifts his head. The purple half-moons under his eyes are deep. “Us,” he clarifies.  
  
“All of you,” Jack agrees. Then leans forward in his chair. “And you, in particular, Ren.”  
  
Jinguuji winces. “Jack.”  
  
Jack lets out a breath. “You’re the one who lights fires. You’re the one who brought him back.”  
  
“Jack!” Jinguuji’s voice is pleading.  
  
“It’s not a lie.” Jack sits back, curling his hands over his knees. “Without that fire, I would never have figured out that he needs you.”  
  
“I didn’t do any of that on purpose,” says Jinguuji. He rakes his hands through his hair. “I wasn’t even aware of it.”  
  
Jack sighs a little. “That just shows how strong your connection to him is.”  
  
“So it’s on my back. I get it.” Jinguuji sounds exhausted, resigned.  
  
“That’s not what I meant.”   
  
“Oh, really? Then what did you mean,” snaps Jinguuji.  
  
“Rei has always had a hard time getting people to understand him. But you do.” At Jinguuji’s derisive snort, Jack amends, “Mostly. I know that I wasn’t exactly… grateful. That time.” The memory of Jinguuji knocking back half of the glass he’d meant for himself, to break his sobriety. Jinguuji telling him that _Rei didn’t want him to drink._ “But you heard him. You hear him. That means a lot.”   
  
Jinguuji stares at him, his jaw working. He gives up a defeated sigh. “I can’t hear him.”  
  
“You can read him,” Jack presses. “Without words.”  
  
Jinguuji is quiet for a long moment. Then, like a shock, he’s on his feet. “Without words. No words. No words! Jack!” He catches Jack’s sweater in both hands, looking electric and giddy. “No _fucking_ words. They wouldn’t do him any good anyway.”  
  
Before Jack can respond, Jinguuji lets him go and is already bolting for the door.   
  
“I’ve gotta go. I’ve gotta - I’ve got. Listen, we’ll be done soon. I promise, Jack,” he says, his hand on the knob. “Don’t go.”  
  
“Got nowhere to go,” Jack responds.  
  
Jinguuji gives him a smile, a flash of impossibly white teeth, and is gone.  
  


* * *

  
  
Jack wonders if he should be feeling something other than sick apprehension.  
  
Nanami is at the piano, shrouded in moonlight. Around her, the members of STARISH stand in a half-circle. It’s well past midnight. None of them has spoken since they snuck into this practice room, furtive as criminals. Kurusu taped black paper over the window in the door, but the curtains they left open. Shinomiya, smiling guilelessly, had produced the keys to the room.   
  
It hasn’t even been a day since Jinguuji grabbed him by the front of his shirt and shook him.  
  
They are beautiful like this, painted in white and deep gray by the moon and stars. Though the lights are off, already Aijima seems to glow.  
  
“Ready?” asks Aijima, his voice gentle.  
  
Jack, standing in front of them at parade rest so his knees don’t lock, so they can’t see the shaking of his hands, only nods.  
  
Nanami lifts her hands to the keys. They breathe in as one.  
  
She begins to play.  
  
Jinguuji sings first, his voice a low thrum on which the others build a harmony. A flame blooms over Jack’s heart. Stars invade the darkness of the room, thousands of pinpricks of light above and around them. The pressure of their song roots Jack to the spot.  
  
Jack feels the stomach-twisting sensation of inevitable gravity again, only now it’s a force beyond comprehension. The boys are casting their net wide, and with every new complex chord they are tightening their grip. There are no words but the refrain, a longing chant.  
  
 _Come down, come down._  
  
Rei appears before the piano slowly, translucent at first, shining with snow. Tiny flurries swirl around him, catching on his hair. There is no flame in front of his heart. His hands cradle a coiled blizzard.  
  
Jack watches Rei bow to Aijima, to Nanami. To Ichinose, to Ittoki, to Kurusu, Hijirikawa, Shinomiya.  
  
Rei stops in front of Jinguuji. The fire starter, the source. Rei bows deeply, then tips his head toward Jack.  
  
Still singing, Jinguuji follows Rei. Jack thinks of a turbulent flight, of Jinguuji mumbling a shaky song and Rei shielding both of them as well as a translucent phantasm possibly could.  
  
When the two of them are before him, Jack can see how solid Rei has become, how silvery. There is an orange glow rolling off of Jinguuji, flickering at the edges with heat.  
  
Jinguuji reaches for Jack, pressing his hand to Jack’s chest. Jack almost staggers with the heat of it, but he can’t take his eyes off of Rei. Rei, who is so close, who smiles at him and puts his mouth to Jack’s ear.  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
Jack reaches for him. He can’t help it. Where Rei should be is nothing but freezing cold air.  
  
Rei pulls back and shakes his head a little. His voice is deep and smooth, just as Jack remembers it. “I’m going now.”  
  
Jack’s vision blurs with tears. He nods, not trusting himself to speak.  
  
Rei’s eyes soften. “You stay.”  
  
Rei steps back, away from him. Jinguuji keeps his hand on Jack’s chest like a tether, keeping him on his feet. The song is ending, but the blizzard in Rei’s hands still swirls.  
  
The last voice in the room is Jinguuji’s, the low hum keeping the fire alive.  
  
Rei fades until there is nothing but the afterimage of snow.  
  
Jinguuji’s hand is hot through his shirt, over the desperate pounding of his heart. All Jack can hear is his own ragged breath until Jinguuji shifts his grip to the back of Jack’s neck.  
  
Jinguuji whispers, “I heard him too.”  
  
Jack fists his hand in Jinguuji’s coat.  
  
 _You stay._  
  
Jack starts to shake, tears rolling down his face.  
  
 _You stay_.  
  
Jinguuji kneads the back of his neck.  
  
 _You stay._  
  
It’s an admonition, a relief, a burden.  
  
Slowly, slowly, the stars wink out. Jack is alone in the dark, but for the grounding heat of Jinguuji’s hand on the back of his neck. Jack is alone and not alone. Dimly, he realizes Jinguuji isn’t saying anything, is only supporting him with his touch and his breath.  
  
Rei is gone, and Jack is here.  
  
There is nothing in his heart but a deep, rending pain. He’d felt it before, hollowing him out as he stepped back on Earth for the first time without any of his pilots by his side. He’d felt it in tendrils worming their way into his sleep, into every quiet moment. He’d drowned it in alcohol. And though it’s a familiar pain, familiarity doesn’t dull its edge.  
  
Rei used his last words to tell Jack to live.  
  
Jinguuji squeezes the back of his neck. He whispers, “Jack. Jack, let’s get out of here, okay?”  
  
Jack can’t answer him. His tongue is thick, his throat is closed. He lets Jinguuji guide him to the door and beyond it. He walks down the hallway on autopilot, his eyes too thick with tears, his legs leaden. Jinguuji’s hand on his neck is so warm.  
  
Jinguuji pushes him down to sit on something soft. Jinguuji lets go of him. Jack’s neck is cold. Jack closes his eyes against the warm yellow light in the room.  
  
Jinguuji murmurs to him. Takes off his boots, guides him onto his side. Covers him with a blanket.  
  
“He can’t get caught here,” says Hijirikawa with tired concern.  
  
“Then we won’t get caught,” says Jinguuji. “I’ll just take the couch.”  
  
Hijirikawa sighs. “I can’t think of a worse place for a man in mourning to be.”  
  
“I can,” says Jinguuji with a snort. His hand is warm when he rubs Jack’s back between his shoulders. “How about you, Jack?”  
  
Jack doesn’t answer, too exhausted even to keep his eyes open.  
  
Jinguuji just hums. “Get some sleep. I’ll be here in the morning.”  
  
Jack believes him, and obeys.  
  


* * *

  
  
“That’s not what I asked. How are you?”  
  
“It doesn’t matter.”  
  
“Yes, it does. Because you were close to him. You’re feeling it too, Ren.”  
  
Through the haze of sleep, Jack hears a whispered conversation. Whispers carry farther than low voices, are harsher and more distinct.  
  
“I had nothing to do with him. It doesn’t matter how I’m doing. The only one of us who just lost someone is Jack.”  
  
A sigh. “You cried in your sleep.”  
  
“I’m not a monster. It’s fucking sad.”  
  
Jack opens one eye to see Jinguuji shake Hijirikawa’s hand from his arm.  
  
“You’re gonna be late,” Jinguuji hisses.  
  
Hijirikawa turns to retrieve a coat from his closet. He lays it over his arm. “I’ll see you later,” he whispers.  
  
Jinguuji turns his back on him before he’s even out the door.  
  
Jack watches Jinguuji sink down onto the couch. The cushions are in disarray. Jinguuji’s hair is a mess, stuck to his neck with sweat.  
  
Jack sits up slowly. Every part of his body aches. Rei is gone.  
  
Jinguuji looks over, then runs his hand through his hair to straighten it up. He rises, crossing the room. “Hey, you.”  
  
“Where am I?” croaks Jack.  
  
“My room.” Jinguuji sits on the edge of the bed beside him, his weight dipping the mattress. “Didn’t want to make you walk through the snow at night.”  
  
Jack rubs at his face. He can feel the crusts at the corners of his eyes. Jinguuji offers him a bottle of water, still sealed. Jack accepts it, cracks it open. It’s tepid, probably from sitting out all night, but the water is good.  
  
“I’m going to make you eat, you know,” says Jinguuji.  
  
Jack’s stomach twists. He feels nausea rise in the back of his throat. Rei is gone. “No.”  
  
“Yeah. Most important meal of the day.” Jinguuji isn’t looking at him, but instead out at the rest of the room.  
  
“No. You aren’t obligated—”  
  
“I know,” says Jinguuji. There are dark circles under his blue, blue eyes. “But I’m still gonna make you eat.”  
  
Jack watches him for a long moment. He breathes, “Thank you,” because he’s grateful, somewhere. He’s sure of it.  
  
Jinguuji turns to him. Jack can’t tell if Jinguuji sees him or someone else. Jack doesn’t much care. Rei is gone.  
  
“Do you want a shower?”  
  
Jack thinks about hot water, about clean clothes. About how he hasn’t done laundry since he can remember, and how his clothes aren’t exactly clean anymore. About how those clothes are an interminable walk away, through the sunlight of morning and the snow.  
  
He croaks, “No.”  
  
Jinguuji shrugs. “Guess I’m going alone,” he murmurs. He gets to his feet, affecting a yawn.  
  
It’s so easy, now, to tell when Jinguuji is faking. Jack watches Jinguuji’s back as he heads for the bathroom, the way he pulls his shirt over his head as he walks. Jack waits for the water to start before stretching, taking mental stock. He hurts. It’s impossible to differentiate between sore muscles and the physical pain of loss.  
  
Rei is gone.  
  
Steam creeps out along the ceiling, out of the open door of the bathroom. Jack pushes himself out of bed. His legs hold him. He walks to the bathroom, knocks on the doorframe without looking in.  
  
“Yeah?” says Jinguuji, echoing faintly over the tile.  
  
“Sing something for me,” says Jack. “Please.”  
  
Jinguuji is quiet for a long moment. “It’s not going to do anything now,” he finally says.  
  
Jack closes his eyes. “I know.”  
  
A small eternity passes, marked by the rush of water on tile.  
  
Jinguuji begins to hum.  
  
Rei is gone.  
  
Jack keeps his eyes closed. There is still a blooming warmth in his chest, still a flame. He can’t pretend that it doesn’t coil up in the emptiness inside of him and spread to fill it.  
  
The water stops.  
  
Jinguuji keeps humming, low and soft. It’s briefly muffled by rustling fabric, and then resumes.  
  
It almost stops the hurt.  
  
Jack can feel it, the slow-burning birth of addiction. He could stay like this, begging Jinguuji to sing for him to make him feel alive and warm. Could work for the agency, as a bodyguard maybe, staying by Jinguuji. Could guard Jinguuji when they’re on planes, so nobody else could expose Jinguuji’s fear. Could follow them until STARISH lost popularity and they went their separate ways. Could beg Jinguuji to let him stay after that, too, for whatever cost.  
  
Rei is gone. But Rei told him to live. And that would not be a life, not really.  
  
Jack pushes away from the doorframe hard, shaking himself. He nearly knocks his elbow into Jinguuji’s bare chest.  
  
“Jack?”  
  
“That’s good,” says Jack, looking away. “You don’t have to do any more.”  
  
Jinguuji’s voice is soft, confused. “Oh. Okay.”  
  
Jack is being an asshole again. A stab of guilt prompts him to continue. “I need to get back to normal,” he confesses, turning to Jinguuji.  
  
Hurt flashes across Jinguuji’s face, but almost immediately shifts into a watery laugh. Jinguuji rubs the back of his hand over his mouth and says, “Gotcha.”  
  
Jinguuji presses past him toward his closet. His hair is messy from being towel-dried, the few dry strands lifting away in a halo. Jack grimaces. “I just— ”  
  
“When my mom died,” says Jinguuji, cutting him off, “my father got rid of everything that would remind him of her. Just everything. I was too young to fight it, so I lost everything on the same day.”   
  
He pauses, sliding a pair of shorts up under his towel and then tossing the towel over the foot of his bed. “But I found this one recording of her voice.”   
  
He selects an undershirt, pulls it on. “I listened to it whenever I could. Until it broke.”  
  
He steps into a pair of faded jeans. He lets out a long breath. “It was like she died again. Don’t think I could go through it a third time.”  
  
Finally, Jinguuji turns to face Jack. Jinguuji’s face is flushed from the heat of the shower, blotchy around the cheeks. He gives a weak little shrug.  
  
“So. Breakfast?”  
  
“Jesus, Ren,” Jack mumbles. “Give me a minute.”  
  
Jinguuji hums, sinks down on the sofa and stretches his legs out. Even his bare feet are perfectly groomed.  
  
Jack shuts himself into the bathroom for privacy. The room smells clean, like soap and aftershave. The steam has mostly cleared from the mirror, but clings to the top edges. The face in the mirror is sunken, gray-skinned and skeletal.  
  
Rei is gone.  
  
Jack washes his face in the sink, rinses out his mouth, spits. Runs his tongue over the film on his teeth. He drinks from the faucet, wipes his face on his sleeve. When he lifts his head, his reflection is the same.  
  
Rei is gone.  
  
Jack runs a hand through his hair. He straightens his clothes, rumpled from sleeping in them, until he looks a little more presentable.  
  
Rei is gone.  
  
Jack listens at the bathroom door before opening it, just in case. It’s only Jinguuji there, in the same position on the couch. Jinguuji’s head is tipped back and he’s staring, unseeing, at the ceiling. He’s put on a sweatshirt and a knit cap over his wet hair.  
  
“Okay,” says Jack.  
  
Jinguuji blinks slowly, then turns his head. “I put your boots by the door,” he says.  
  
They toe into their shoes in silence. They retrieve their coats from the pegs by the door. Jinguuji lets them out, then locks the dorm behind them. They walk through the building, take the elegant stairs down, their footfalls muffled by lush carpeting.   
  
Jinguuji doesn’t lead them to the cafeteria. Instead, they go out the front door to meet a waiting car.  
  
Jack says, “We aren’t eating here?”  
  
“Not here,” agrees Jinguuji. The driver opens the door for them.  
  
Jack climbs in after Jinguuji. The car pulls away. The snow rushes past the windows.  
  
“Are you hiding me?” murmurs Jack, watching as they pass the main gates of the agency grounds.  
  
Jinguuji chuckles. “Yep. That’s exactly what I’m doing,” he drawls.  
  
Jack sighs. “I’ll get a ticket home today.”  
  
There’s no response from Jinguuji. Jack leans his head against the cold car window.  
  
It’s summer in Australia, baking heat. There were some carvings still curing in the woodshed. Bottles he hadn’t taken out, burned-out lightbulbs he hadn’t replaced. Mail unopened. Dirty laundry moldering in a corner of the bathroom. Fuck, he left the seat up on the toilet. The heat has to have evaporated all of the water out of the bowl by now.  
  
Just the thought of it makes Jack’s shoulders ache. There is so much work to do.  
  
The car comes to a stop in front of a coffee shop, all but deserted this late in the morning. They enter without ceremony, and are seated near the back in a corner, so that both of them have their backs to a wall. It means neither of them can be surprised from behind.  
  
Jinguuji’s cap, pulled low over his bright hair, seems to hide him well enough. Jack could spot his pretty face in a crowd at this point, but either he isn’t recognized or the customers of this coffee shop are discreet. Nobody approaches the table.  
  
Jack tries to get away with just ordering coffee, but Jinguuji cuts in and smoothly orders food for him as well. He’s still charming, and gives the waitress a perfect, white smile. It’s ruined by the circles under his eyes, but Jack doesn’t tell him. Jinguuji’s still beautiful.  
  
“Where’s home, anyway?” asks Jinguuji once they’re alone.  
  
Jack opens his mouth to tell Jinguuji about the parcel of land he left behind. But he never really considered that place home. It was the place he existed until Rei came to him, but it never fit him. Home was on Fairy, in his office. With cold pizza and beer and wood shavings, and Rei curled up on his sofa watching him carve another boomerang. Home was in the barracks, the clanging of metal and the smell of jet fuel.  
  
Jack presses his teeth into his lower lip to bring himself back to the present. Lamely, he says, “I…” and stops. Jinguuji wants to know where the plane ticket will take him, that’s all. “Australia.”  
  
“Long flight,” murmurs Jinguuji.   
  
Jack nods. “Yeah.”  
  
“What’s it like?”  
  
“It’s not so bad. I slept, last time,” says Jack. And Rei rode with him, insubstantial as dust motes in a sunbeam.  
  
Jinguuji smiles. “I meant Australia, not the flight.”  
  
“Oh. Ah,” says Jack, looking down at the tabletop. It’s wooden, stained so dark it’s almost black and lacquered to a shine. He can see his own reflection in it, blurred and indistinct. “It’s huge. Everyone stays on the coast, so if you go inland you’re alone for miles. And… and everything that lives there is lethal. I guess I wanted something familiar.”  
  
It takes Jinguuji a moment to catch the reference. Then he winces. “You’re comparing it to a war zone?”  
  
“Soldier humor,” says Jack, and realizes he’s smiling.  
  
“You are the weirdest guy,” says Jinguuji, but he smiles in response.  
  
When the waitress delivers their coffee, they’re both laughing. The coffee is hot and good and Jinguuji’s voice is rough and Rei is gone. All of these things are true. Jinguuji shifts, his foot knocking into Jack’s under the table.  
  
Rei is gone and Jinguuji is here.  
  
Jack finds he has the stomach to eat something after all. They eat in companionable quiet. Jinguuji avoids anything that might have even brushed up against a carbohydrate, but Jack doesn’t call him on it. Jack doesn’t finish anything, doesn’t eat more than enough to soak up the coffee. Jinguuji doesn’t pressure him to eat more.  
  
Jack pays before Jinguuji can beat him to it. Jinguuji gives him a pretty frown. Jack is unmoved.  
  
“Tell me before you leave, alright?” says Jinguuji after they’ve gotten back into the car.  
  
Jack blinks. “Sure. Someone’s got to let a taxi in for me.”  
  
“I’ll have someone drive you,” says Jinguuji. “Don’t waste your money on a cab.”  
  
“It’s not a waste,” Jack protests. He watches Jinguuji pull his cap off and ruffle his hair, still damp. “You don’t have to do that.”  
  
“This conversation’s getting repetitive, isn’t it?” murmurs Jinguuji. “Just give me what I want.”  
  
Jack can’t help it. He snorts. “That’s always how you get it? Persistence?”  
  
“Never lets me down,” Jinguuji replies. He gives Jack a smile that is clearly meant to be charming and princely, but his half-wet hair plastered to his head ruins the effect.  
  
Jack loosens the collar on the coat Jinguuji bought him and thinks, well, he’s right. Without any venom, he says, “Fine. Have it your way.”  
  
Jinguuji gives him a smug grin. He’s a beautiful kid, and a spoiled jerk, and Jack is going to miss the hell out of him when he leaves.  
  
Jinguuji drops him off at the visitors’ building inside the agency gates and then leaves, off to work. Jack heads inside and to his room. He sits down on the edge of his bed and picks up the tablet computer he bought for himself, pulls up a travel website to book himself a ticket back home.  
  
Except that home isn’t Australia. There’s nobody there. Australia is just a place where he bought himself a house. A failed start at recovery, the shell of a new life.  
  
Jack stares, unseeing, at the screen of the tablet.  
  
The screen goes dark.  
  
Rei is gone.  
  


* * *

  
  
“I never did get you that cell phone, did I?” says Aijima, smiling.  
  
Jack opens the door to his room a little wider. “No. That’s alright.”  
  
Aijima comes in, warm and earthy against the stark white of the room. Even his winter clothes are all in jewel tones and gold, so his skin looks impossibly rich. “Only as long as I’m lucky at guessing where you are. How are you feeling?”  
  
Jack sucks in a slow breath as he shuts the door. Aijima’s smile goes wry. “I’m sorry. I seem to be very good at unkind questions.”  
  
“I had breakfast with Jinguuji,” he offers, wondering if what Aijima wants is for him to have recovered already.  
  
“I’m glad. I hope it was good.” Aijima loosens the scarf around his neck, revealing the pendant he always wears. “I hope my presence isn’t pressuring you. I came to tell you that you’re welcome to be my … unofficial employee for as long as you like.”  
  
 _Oh, right_. Jack was originally permitted to travel with STARISH because he was Aijima’s security. He’d forgotten, hadn’t performed a single duty that might be construed as work since they’d gotten back to the Agency. Then again, neither had Aijima paid him.  
  
STARISH will be going on tour soon. Festivals, stadiums, a few international venues. Endless bus rides, waiting, with nothing to occupy him but his thoughts. The rare chance at sleep, the too-available hotel bar, the ceaseless screaming of fans. Plane flights. Jinguuji hunched down with the volume in his headphones up to deafening.  
  
Jack clears his throat. “Ah, as kind as your offer is, I’ve imposed long enough. I’ve got a ticket back home already.”  
  
Aijima’s eyebrows raise in surprise. “Oh! Well, I must insist that you were never an imposition, Bukhar-san. But if you’re ready to leave, then I wish you safe travels.”  
  
“Thank you,” says Jack.  
  
It isn’t the only thing Jack needs to thank him for. Aijima seems to know it. He slips into Jack’s space and hugs him.  
  
Aijima smells like sun-warmed grass, even in the dead of winter. Jack tries not to breathe it in, to take comfort from it. He tries not to want to stay.  
  
“When is your flight?” asks Aijima as he pulls back.  
  
Jack rubs the palms of his hands together. He tries to sound like he’s looking forward to it when he says, “Tonight, actually.”  
  
“By the Muses,” breathes Aijima. Jack realizes that is a swear. “That’s not - nearly enough time to tell anyone goodbye.”  
  
“Could you do me one more favor, and do that for me?” asks Jack. He can’t keep the cowardice out of his voice. He can’t stay here any longer. He lies, “It… was the only one with an opening for two weeks.”  
  
Aijima just gives him a smile. “Of course I will.”  
  
“And… and thank them. For me. Please,” says Jack softly. “For everything you all have done.”  
  
“I am so grateful to have met you,” says Aijima. “I’ll tell them. And none of us will forget.”  
  
Bewildered, Jack can only repeat, “Thanks.”  
  


* * *

  
  
Everything Jack carves turns, eventually, into a boomerang.  
  
Except, sometimes, tiny, flaky birds carved from complementary soap.  
  
Their feet are insubstantial, melting too easily into the barest puddles of water on the counter. The birds sag ungracefully, tipping until they drop down to their bellies, beaks upturned.  
  
Jack wipes his knife on a hand towel, pristine white soap on pristine white cloth.   
  
The pounding on his door rouses him.  
  
Jinguuji is there, flushed and bright, pink nose and cheeks, his hair clinging to his neck under his beanie. The winter wind seems to be on his heels.  
  
“I got — your car. You asshole.”  
  
Jack steps back to let him in. “I don’t have to be at the airport until closer to nine.”  
  
Jinguuji grinds his teeth, but stays in the hall. “I had to find out from Cesshi?”  
  
Jack doesn’t stop holding the door. “I don’t have a phone,” he says, his voice low and even. He tries to sound reasonable.  
  
Jinguuji shakes his head. “Not an excuse.”  
  
“Yeah,” agrees Jack softly.  
  
Jinguuji takes a step forward, like he might come in. Then appears to think better of it, one foot still firmly planted in the hall. “Okay. Then. I’ll send the car away. It’ll come back when you need it.” He pulls his phone from his pocket and texts one-handed.  
  
Jack shifts his grip on the doorknob. “Are you going to come in?”  
  
“Am I?” counters Jinguuji, hardly sparing him a glance. He slides his phone into the back pocket of his jeans.  
  
Jack thinks, I’m never going to see you again.  
  
He breathes, “You are.”  
  
Jinguuji passes him. Jack shuts the door.  
  
Jinguuji comes to stand in front of Jack’s one lonely duffel. It’s already packed, waiting at the foot of Jack’s bed. The nice coat Jinguuji bought him is waiting on its peg by the door by his boots.  
  
There is a small flock of melting birds in the bathroom.  
  
Jack curls his hands around Jinguuji’s shoulders from behind. Maybe it’s because of the way Aijima embraced him earlier. Or the quiet argument he overheard between Jinguuji and Hijirikawa. Maybe it’s because he wants to and this is the only chance he’s got. The ticket was purchased; he can’t take it back. But he can feel Jinguuji’s bones through his sweatshirt, and the clinging cold from outside.  
  
Jinguuji bows his head.  
  
His tongue thick, Jack mumbles, “If. I were to get a phone.”  
  
“Internet’s free,” says Jinguuji. “And harder to trace.”  
  
“What are you expecting to talk about?” asks Jack, and Jinguuji laughs. “I guess it’s weird if you take an interest in a former security guard,” he allows, and Jinguuji laughs harder.  
  
Jack smooths his thumbs under the hood of Jinguuji’s sweatshirt. It’s warmer there, and easier to feel the tremors in his back. He leans in, and under the day’s sweat is the smell of Jinguuji’s soap. Jack remembers the echo of his voice in the shower.   
  
It’s probably best if they don’t talk on the phone.  
  
Jack’s forehead touches the cushion of Jinguuji’s hood.  
  
Jinguuji lets it stay, wraps his arms around himself.   
  
“Is this an Australian thing?” mumbles Jinguuji, “Or a Jack thing?”  
  
“Decide whether or not you care,” says Jack, closing his eyes. “I’m busy.”  
  
Jinguuji laughs again, more softly. “I guess I don’t.”  
  
Jack takes a long breath, then another. He’s memorizing the smell of Jinguuji, the shape of him. Boniness, and bravado, and the deep, rich purr of a cat in his laugh. Jack wants him, wants to be around him, to feel settled and centered and to have something to want.  
  
Jack is so fucking selfish. Rei is gone. Jinguuji is between his hands and patient, so patient.  
  
“This sucks,” mumbles Jinguuji.  
  
Jack nods. Jinguuji’s cold fingers creep up, covering Jack’s left hand.  
  
“I mean. It really sucks.” Jinguuji laughs again. “But you’ve gotta get back to normal, you said.”  
  
Jack grunts agreement, but lifts his head. “I did.”  
  
Jinguuji turns, regarding him over his shoulder. “What’s normal?”  
  
Jack smiles wryly. He lets go. “I can only guess.”  
  
 _It’s not being haunted by your voice. It’s not wanting to hear you sing or laugh or moan._  
  
Jinguuji steps away from him, hefts his duffel bag. “Then. One last weird dinner sounds good.” He shoulders it, then turns back to Jack. “I’m making you eat, remember?”  
  
“I remember,” says Jack.  
  
Jinguuji pulls his phone from his pocket again. “I know a place.”  
  
Jack sighs. “You know a lot of places.”  
  
Jinguuji grins. “I’m not a cafeteria food kind of guy.” He texts something, then tucks the phone away. “Get your boots on.”  
  
Jack crosses to the door and does as told, stepping into his boots and lacing them up. He feels Jinguuji walk fingertips up his spine as he straightens, then the weight of his coat wrapping around his shoulders.  
  
Jinguuji’s flirtatiousness is back. Jack can’t find the energy to be annoyed, but he dislikes it. He buttons his coat brusquely and leaves the key to the room on the end of the bed. He holds the door for Jinguuji, follows him out. The final click of the door is muffled in the hall.  
  
“Hey, Jack,” says Jinguuji softly, as they make their way to the little lobby. “There’s something I’ve wanted to ask you.”  
  
“What’s that,” says Jack, deadpan, expecting something silly.  
  
Jinguuji stops in front of the doors, nothing but double-paned glass between them and the dark, snowy evening.  
  
“What was it like, getting sober?”  
  
Jack startles. Jinguuji looks over, wrinkles around his eyes, his smile strained. “Too personal. Never mind.”  
  
Jack stays quiet beside him.   
  
“Ah, there’s the car,” says Jinguuji lightly, leading the way out into the snow. His sweatshirt isn’t enough to protect him from the cold, and it’s obvious by the way he hustles to get into the car, passing Jack’s bag to the driver to stow in the trunk.  
  
Jack follows more slowly, his boots crunching over salt and ice.  
  
The inside of the car is burning hot, so dry that Jinguuji’s hair is lifting with the static. The metal seatbelt buckle zaps Jack when he belts himself in.   
  
To the outside, as the car pulls away from the Agency grounds, Jack says, “It was something I had to do. To get close to you - to all of you.”  
  
Jinguuji stays silent.  
  
Jack focuses on his breathing. “I. I didn’t think of it any other way, at the time.”  
  
He’d had a job to do. Rei had needed him.  
  
Rei didn’t want him to drink.  
  
Jack looks over, watching Jinguuji’s hands knot themselves in the pocket of his sweatshirt. Jinguuji’s jaw is working but no sound is coming out.   
  
“I just. I just stopped buying it when I got to Japan. I.” Jack laughs wryly. “I spent extra on one of those hotel rooms with its own bathroom so I didn’t bother anyone else. And just locked myself in.”  
  
Jinguuji’s expression is so closed. Jack has nothing but his own confessions to fill the silence.  
  
“Rei kept me company sometimes. He showed up if I played the right songs. Mostly just. Just you, even if it wore off eventually. I can’t explain it. I don’t remember all that much, either. Just being sick.”  
  
He closes his eyes. “Why do you want to know?”  
  
Jinguuji is quiet for a long moment. His voice is rough when he finally says, “Wondering what’s normal.”  
  
“I can only guess, Ren,” says Jack.  
  
“What are you going to do now?”  
  
Jack can hear the questions Jinguuji isn’t asking.  
  
He wants to smile, to reassure him. Jinguuji’s just a kid.  
  
He stays silent, because his mouth won’t form the words. Is it wrong to want a good nights’ sleep once he’s home? He knows exactly where the remaining bottles are in his kitchen, and even though they must be baked by the summer heat, a turn in the fridge will cool them.   
  
He imagines the first, burning swallow, the way his face will flush and the world around him will go soft-edged.  
  
Getting the bottle out of the fridge.  
  
The _fridge._  
  
The car stops. Jack sucks in a breath of horror.  
  
“What?” asks Jinguuji, his hand on the door handle to keep the driver from opening it.  
  
“I left. I left milk in the refrigerator,” breathes Jack.  
  
Jinguuji’s face contorts in a rictus of disgust. “Oh. Oh, God.”  
  
Jack nods.  
  
“You’re _lucky_ if that’s cheese.”  
  
Jack nods again.  
  
The driver taps on the window.  
  
Jack starts to laugh.  
  
“Gross,” says Jinguuji. “But, uh. At least you won’t be surprised by it?”  
  
Jack hopes this is his life, now. No more phenomena without scientific precedent. No more Muses. Just his house in Australia and the promise of the unending mundane.  
  
“I’ll go in prepared,” he agrees, thinking of rubber gloves and disinfectant. Thinking of, maybe, just getting a new refrigerator. The produce drawer tended to ice over anyway, if he remembers correctly.   
  
Jack has so much work to do.  
  
Jinguuji lets the driver open the door, letting in the chill air. They hustle into the waiting warmth of the restaurant, to another secluded table in another back corner. Jack lets Jinguuji order for him again, hot tea and roasted winter vegetables and salted fish.   
  
Over his mug, Jinguuji says, “Seriously, though.” His words cut into the steam curling around his face.  
  
Jack follows Jinguuji’s sightline to the front of the restaurant and the bar. Part of him is sorely tempted. What he says is, “I don’t know. I. I don’t ever want to go through getting sober again, if that’s what you mean.”  
  
“Sounded awful,” agrees Jinguuji. “But it also kinda sounds like you’re gonna be lonely, out there.”  
  
Jack looks down at his own mug. It’s half full of barley tea, smelling like comfort. “Yeah,” he says. “But. But that’ll be new.” He smiles. Rei is gone.  
  
Jinguuji is watching him. Jack can feel the weight of his regard.  
  
“You even _get_ Internet at your place, Jack?”  
  
“Nope,” Jack replies, shrugging. “I guess I could get the cable run out, but it’s so remote I never wanted to.”  
  
At Jinguuji’s scandalized grimace, Jack laughs.  
  
“It’s not so bad, not having the Internet. There’s a little cafe in town—”  
  
“Jack!” cries Jinguuji. Jack stops, obedient, but he can feel the smile tugging at his mouth.  
  
Jinguuji sighs dramatically and prods at his food. “How am I going to sing you to sleep with a setup like that?”  
  
Jack bristles. “That isn’t funny.”  
  
“Should I record something for you, then, I wonder?” murmurs Jinguuji, eyeing him through his bangs. “For those days when hard work and sunshine aren’t doing it.”  
  
“Ren.”  
  
“Would you prefer to pretend nothing ever happened? D’you just want to forget me?” Jinguuji asks.  
  
“I already asked you not to sing for me anymore,” says Jack. He curls his hands around his mug, grounded by the sharp heat in the ceramic. “You don’t have to do anything.”  
  
“You aren’t answering me.”  
  
Jack sighs. “Just. Normal. I want to get back to normal. And I don’t want to obligate anyone any further.”  
  
“What do you even think normal is? — Ugh, asks the idol of the spaceman,” grumbles Jinguuji, looking peeved at his own self-awareness. “You know what I mean, though, right?”   
  
“Not really, no. I’ve spent my entire adult life in the military, and before that I was getting advanced degrees, and. And your entire life - ” Jinguuji snorts at the omission of the word _adult_ “ - has been spent onstage.” Jack shakes his head. “Or preparing to go on tour. Which you’re about to do.”  
  
“I haven’t forgotten,” says Jinguuji. “But that doesn’t tell me why you think normal’s gotta be your new hermitage in the outback.”  
  
Jack opens his mouth to protest, but Jinguuji doesn’t miss a beat. “Didn’t think I knew the word ‘hermitage’, huh?”  
  
Jack can’t help but laugh and say, “No, no, but - ”   
  
“No buts. Humans are social creatures and you’ve spent your whole life surrounded. You’re gonna go batshit if you stay out there.” Jinguuji holds up his hands. “I’m not saying you have to stay here or follow us around. But for your own self, go to that house, hazmat your fridge, and then get yourself set up in a place with other people. And the Internet.”  
  
Jack smiles. “And the Internet.”  
  
Jinguuji nods like he’s gotten the point across and resumes prodding at his meal. “And.”  
  
Jack waits. Jinguuji doesn’t seem inclined to speaking after his outburst, though, so Jack returns his attention to his plate. After having a only few mouthfuls for breakfast hours earlier, his stomach is uneasy with the prospect of much more. Still, his body hasn’t caught up with his grief. Only the barley tea sits well.  
  
Jinguuji eats just as little, though he chews the same contemplative mouthful for far longer than is needed.  
  
“And. It might not be my business,” he says, after draining his water. “But at this point I get the right to worry about you. I dunno if this has made us friends or something. Kinda thinking it did.”  
  
Jack rests his chin on the back of his hand and says, “God damn.”  
  
Jinguuji flushes, recoiling from the table. “What?!”  
  
“You had me thinking you were smooth,” says Jack, and he’s smiling again.  
  
Jinguuji’s lip curls and he rolls his eyes. “It’s been a long fucking day, okay?”  
  
“Two days,” Jack amends. Jinguuji’s expression softens, loses some of its animation. Loss creeps over him, pressing his shoulders down. His red hair looks so lank and lifeless, all the fire gone out of it. He chips at the ice in his glass with his straw.  
  
Jack just murmurs, “If we’re friends, then you were friends with Rei, too. It stands to reason.”  
  
Jinguuji winces, stabbing a little harder into his glass. “I didn’t - I couldn’t.”  
  
“If you don’t want to think of it that way, I won’t ask you to,” says Jack, keeping his voice low. “But he liked you.”  
  
“Jack.” Jinguuji lets out a breath. “I’m trying not to be selfish, here.”  
  
Jack watches Jinguuji’s straw bend. He snorts a little. “You know how hard it was to get him to even talk to other humans sometimes?” When Jinguuji wrinkles his nose, Jack says, “Okay, bad example. But he communicated with you. He - he came and got you when he needed someone. You can’t say you’re being selfish.”  
  
“I’m pretty pissed that you’re both leaving,” mumbles Jinguuji.  
  
Jack swallows. Jinguuji doesn’t look up, just keeps jabbing with his straw.  
  
Finally, softly, Jack says, “I didn’t think I had a reason to stay.”  
  
“You’ve got a fridge to clean out, right?” says Jinguuji with a thin smile. He pulls his phone from his pocket and checks the time. “And you’d better get going.”  
  
“Ren,” says Jack, but Jinguuji’s already moving to flag the waiter and pay the bill.  
  
“Ren,” says Jack, but Jinguuji’s up and leaving, and Jack follows him back into the car.  
  
“Ren,” says Jack. Jinguuji turns to him once the door is closed, his expression mild and empty. Jack says, “Do you have an email or something? You said to use the Internet.”  
  
Jinguuji presses his lips together. He says, “Pull up your sleeve.”  
  
“What?” asks Jack, but Jinguuji is already reaching between them and hauling up the sleeve of Jack’s fine coat and the long-sleeved shirt he wore under it to expose his skin.  
  
Jinguuji pulls a permanent marker from his sweatshirt pocket and gives Jack’s questioning look a wink. “Always carry one, for emergencies,” he mumbles, scrawling on the inside of Jack’s arm. It’s an email address, underlined twice. The ink reeks, but Jinguuji’s warm breath over Jack’s skin to dry it raises goosebumps on Jack’s arm. Jack chews the inside of his cheek to tamp out the sudden flare of desire.  
  
With a perfunctory gesture, Jinguuji caps the marker and stows it, leaving Jack to resettle his sleeve. “That one, don’t share it with anyone. It’s private.”  
  
“I wouldn’t,” says Jack, rubbing at the back of his wrist where Jinguuji’s warm hand had gripped him. He tries not to imagine the wet softness of Jinguuji’s mouth.  
  
“Then. Then just, let me know when you’ve landed safely.”  
  
Jack nods. He holds his arm stiffly, like letting it lay against his side might smudge the ink. He’s already got Jinguuji’s email memorized, but there’s no reason to risk it.  
  
“Ren,” says Jack. Jinguuji doesn’t move, just watches him. He’s so fucking beautiful, and young, and stupid, and Jack is going to miss him like hell. Misses him already, his smell and the confident weight of Jinguuji’s hand on the back of his neck.  
  
Lamely, he finishes, “It might be a little later than you expect. Unless I can find a place to do it on the way home.”  
  
“Shouldn’t be too hard, right?” says Jinguuji, challenging. Jack wants to climb into his arms and lick that tone from his mouth until there’s nothing but sweetness.  
  
What he says is, “Don’t set your watch by it, that’s all.”  
  
Jinguuji’s lips quirk. Jack is an asshole, but he smiles in return. The car pulls up at the airport; the ride feels too short, but there they are.   
  
The driver is outside, opening the trunk, retrieving Jack’s bag for him.  
  
Jack is inside, and Jinguuji is smiling at him, saying something like goodbye. Jack knows he can’t touch him now, in case someone sees. But he nods, and gets out, and bows.  
  
“Thank you,” he says.  
  
“Later, Jack,” says Jinguuji. “Fly safe.”  
  
Jack takes two steps backward before turning to enter the airport. He hears the car pull away from the curb.  
  
He has so much work to do.  
  


* * *

  
  
Jack returns to Australia in the dead of summer.  
  
There are things Jack forgot when he left.  
  
The truck, for example, that he left in long-term airport parking, with a dead battery and oil congealed by the heat of summer. The tires and brake pads are still viable after only a few months, but the charming cough of black smoke from the exhaust pipe does little to settle Jack’s nerves even once he’s gotten a jump from the lot attendant.   
  
The refrigerator, thankfully still functional thanks to Jack’s automatic energy payments, harbors more than ancient milk. He’d had leftover cooked beans and rice in there. The latter had, thankfully, done little more than dehydrate, but the beans had liquefied and grown a powerful stench that hits the back of Jack’s throat hard enough to make him gag.  
  
The water has evaporated out of the toilets and pipes, and the water heater creaks ominously when he first starts to refill it. A forgotten boomerang in the woodshed he’d meant to lacquer seems alright, aside from the coating of dust.  
  
He laughs when he realizes he bought his tablet in Japan and the outlets are incompatible so he can’t even charge the thing. Because, of course, he’s forgotten also to go by the cafe and tell Jinguuji he touched down safely.  
  
Jack has forgotten a lot of things.  
  
He coaxes his truck back into town, gets himself some coffee and some heavy-duty cleaning chemicals. An extra package of trash bags, some food to get by on, some new razors and lacquer. He gets a meal when he notices his stomach gnawing at him, and eats before he goes to the Internet cafe.  
  
He writes this:  
  
 _I’m back safe._  
  
And that’s all. Because he can’t think of anything else, not really. And he’s in public, and someone might be watching, and even if Jinguuji says his email is private, that’s hard to know. And maybe there are other words that Jack’s not going to write, not with the memory of Jinguuji’s warmth beside him fading.  
  
Despite the way Jinguuji teased him, the hot sun and hard work help him sleep.  
  
(Jinguuji responds: _Good. How is it?_ )  
  
He doesn’t throw out the last of his alcohol, not yet. But neither does he touch it.  
  
(Jack sends: _It’s okay. It’s hot, but that’s a nice change._ )  
  
His fine coat he hangs in his closet, heavy and gray next to his other winter clothes.   
  
(Jinguuji responds: _Lucky you. We’re kicking off with outdoor festivals and the ground’s iced over again._ )  
  
His house is so, so empty.  
  
(Jack sends: _Watch where you step._ )  
  
For days, all he does is clean and try to find a rhythm for his life. He takes his truck to a mechanic to get it cleaned up, drives into the city to get a phone. Caves, not long after, and calls a real estate agent.  
  
(Jinguuji responds: _Gotcha._ )  
  
Selling the ranch is only as difficult as the accounting.   
  
(Jack types: _Miss you._ He erases it. He’s in the cafe. Someone could see. Jinguuji could see. He sends: _I don’t want to see anything about you being hurt on the news. Any of you._ )  
  
Even cleaning out the woodshed he built for himself is nothing more than another day’s work. The boomerangs he’s carved he wraps in paper and cloth, and packs into his truck with the few belongings he cares to take with him. His mattress he trashes, the other furniture gets donated or left for the new buyer Jack will never meet.  
  
(Jinguuji responds: _Relax. Natsuki’s part mountain lion, we all just hold on to him._ )  
  
As long as Jack works, he can sleep. The nightmares don’t creep up on him, nor the sound of Rei’s voice telling him to stay. If he’s exhausted when he hauls himself into the shower, whether it’s the creaking shower of the ranch house or the newer, finer shower in the apartment he rents in the city, then the heat of the water stands in for the imagined heat of Jinguuji’s skin.  
  
(Jack sends: _I’m relaxed._ )  
  
But when it’s finally over, and the house is sold, and Jack’s new apartment is a small haven with the sound of the world outside, white-noise and voices, and Jack hasn’t had a drink and he is tired down to his soul, Jack sits on the end of his bed and buries his face in his hands.  
  
He hopes like hell he’s doing this right.  
  
His new apartment has Internet access. He hooks up his tablet.  
  
Jinguuji has responded: _Pics or it’s not true._  
  
Jack stares for a long moment. His tablet has a camera on the front, but he’d taped over it long before. He rubs his thumb over the tape.  
  
He sends: _You first._  
  
It’s meant to be a reminder, that Jinguuji shouldn’t have pictures of Jack on his phone or anywhere else.  
  
Forty-six minutes later, Jack’s tablet chimes with an email.  
  
With a smile that is equal parts tired and mischievous, Jinguuji winks at him, one finger pressed to his lips. He’s clearly in a hotel room, pillowed on white sheets. He’s bare-chested, his hair loose around his shoulders, and yet somehow still wearing earrings and a thin gold band around his index finger. Behind him, on the next bed over, is Hijirikawa asleep on his back, one arm thrown over his eyes.  
  
A second email. A second picture.  
  
Jinguuji on his back, hair fanned out around him on the pillow. His smile is wry, and three of his fingertips show in the bottom corner like he’s waving.  
  
Jack stares, throat dry.  
  
He can almost hear the soft husk of Jinguuji’s voice, partly embarrassed, partly wanting.  
  
No, of course not.  
  
He swallows. Jinguuji has no idea what he’s done, giving this to Jack.  
  
A third email. _Do you have home Internet yet?_ Attached is an invite to a video chat client.  
  
Jack shakes his head, dropping the tablet. Jinguuji’s on tour and it’s already late. Jinguuji has a _roommate_ and Jack has no idea what he’d say.  
  
He pushes himself up, makes himself walk on suddenly shaky legs to find a piece of paper and a marker left over from moving in.  
  
He writes, _Go to sleep, idiot_ on it, then peels the tape from his tablet’s camera.  
  
He sets his face in its sternest possible expression, fumbles a few selfies with the paper, finally gets one to come out right. He sends it to Jinguuji without comment, pictures Jinguuji receiving it and smiling at his phone in bed. Imagines the contrast between cheap, cold sheets and the smooth warmth of Jinguuji’s body, the soft curls of his hair. The soft sounds of Hijirikawa breathing, Jinguuji muffling his voice.  
  
No. Of course not.  
  
It doesn’t stop Jack from going back to that second picture, though. The vulnerable expanse of Jinguuji’s throat and the quirk in his smile. Like this, Jack can see up under his bangs to his whole face, and there’s nothing Jack can see that Jinguuji would ever want to hide with his hair. His eyes are bright and blue and clear and only for Jack. This one little moment is only for Jack.  
  
Another email.  
  
Another picture.  
  
Jinguuji with his face buried in the pillow. His arm is curled up around his head, one eye peeking over his bicep. The light is dimmer, warm yellow-orange. His eye is dark and heavy-lidded.  
  
 _Good night, jerk._  
  
Jack sits hard on the side of his bed.  
  
He sets the tablet to the side and runs his hands through his hair to ground himself. Even if Jinguuji’s messing with him, he can’t mean anything by it. He has a career, and an image, and he’s on tour. He’s just being a flirtatious little shit, like he always has been. Which, in its way, is disappointing as it is a relief. It’s distance, and physicality, and all of the things Jinguuji uses to keep someone at arms’ length.  
  
Which is good.  
  
Because Jack has a life, and an apartment.  
  
An apartment, he realizes, that has bare walls and nothing but a few paper-wrapped boomerangs and the clothes in the closet, a mattress on a box spring and a small table for papers and bills.  
  
Another box, a smaller one this time, for himself and his things. No shadows, now, for a ghost to stand in. No silence.  
  
Jack lays back, staring at his ceiling.   
  
He has a life, here. He has to make something of it.  
  
He has.  
  
He lifts the tablet again and holds it over his face, staring into Jinguuji’s face.  
  
There are support groups, for veterans. Earthside as well as Fairy. He has a brochure, somewhere.  
  
There are jobs he could do. Maybe, take his carvings commercial. Rent a studio space, or just work in a hardware store.   
  
_Good night, jerk._  
  
He could…  
  
There are so many things he could do.  
  
But all he does is look at Jinguuji and feel like an idiot for letting it stop him in his tracks. Because Jinguuji is beautiful, and infuriating, and — and.  
  
And.  
  
Jack drops the tablet over his head and holds onto his own forehead so he doesn’t do anything stupid.  
  
He told Jinguuji to get some sleep. And now, he’ll do the same. It will be clearer in the morning.  
  


* * *

  
  
In the morning, Jack goes out for coffee. It’s a routine. He takes his tablet so he doesn’t feel out of place sitting alone. And maybe he’s set it up to show boy band-related alerts from the Shining Agency, just in case. Because STARISH are on tour, and he worries.  
  
Normally, he takes a minute or two to scan that particular filter, and sees nothing but concert appearances and social media posts. Nothing but the detritus of touring, insubstantial as falling glitter.  
  
This morning, however, Jack’s irrational fears catch up to him. He sees, first, the official notice from the Agency notifying fans that there had been no injuries in the crash.  
  
His vision tunnels.   
  
A crash. But Jinguuji had just sent him pictures that night. Did they have an early wake-up? Did they have a to get on a plane, and head to their next location? How did Ren feel when it dropped? Did he think he was going to die? What the _hell_ was the pilot’s problem? How could they —  
  
It’s not STARISH.  
  
It’s another Agency artist, a singer named Shibuya Tomochika, and her retinue. The runway had iced over and the plane skidded before it even took off. For a few, horrible seconds the plane had lost traction but the pilots got control and stopped it safely. An appearance had to be rescheduled while Shibuya and her group got alternate travel arrangements.  
  
Jack sets down his tablet.  
  
Then picks it up again.  
  
He buys himself a ticket.  
  


* * *

  
  
Spring is here, heading into summer. Jack still ducks down into his coat.  
  
(After Jack denied him, Jinguuji never asked again to video chat.)  
  
In Australia, summer doesn’t give way gently into fall. In Japan, winter similarly clings well into spring.  
  
(Instead, sometimes he sends pictures. Often some of the others are in the background.)  
  
Jack keeps his head down, carefully wends his way through crowds.  
  
(Once, Aijima stole the phone and somehow sent a dozen increasingly blurry pictures of the ensuing scuffle, ending with a thirty-five second video of takeout containers and frantic apology in the background.)  
  
Jack isn’t looking forward to this, but he’s got a trump card he’s really hoping to be able to use.  
  
(In the next picture, sent the next day, Jinguuji’s lip had a split, and Jack got to see the tip of his tongue probing at it.)  
  
It’s unfortunate, really, to have to do it. But he’s got his identification in all of the right languages, and the shows had been sold out for months.  
  
( _Would you look at this? It’s going to take forever to heal. I got yelled at by the makeup artists for roughhousing._ )  
  
STARISH has been selling out venues the size of stadiums, and it’s to a similarly huge hall that Jack is headed. It’s only the afternoon, but already there are fans lined up at the doors and weaving in a giggling queue.  
  
(Jack couldn’t respond, couldn’t make his fingers stop shaking.)  
  
Jack passes them all, heading for the security at the door.  
  
“Excuse me,” he says, politely as he can.   
  
(He has an apartment, but it’s more like a hotel room. He spends more time in the little studio he rents, now, carving boomerangs and birds. He sells them under an assumed name over the Internet. It keeps his hands busy.)  
  
“If you’re looking for the ticket window, it’s around front,” says the guard.  
  
Jack shakes his head. “No. I don’t have a ticket. But I’d like to meet with the band all the same.”  
  
“I’m sorry, sir. That won’t be possible.” The guard sounds patient and not at all exasperated, an amazing quality in someone tasked with handling a boy band’s crowd.  
  
“I appreciate that,” says Jack, reaching into his coat. He produces an ID card. “But I’m hoping, in this case, you’ll make an exception.”  
  
(Major James Bukhar, veteran second-in-command of the Fairy Air Force and survivor of Reconnaissance Division Special Air Force Unit (nicknamed Boomerangs), has never used his reputation for personal gain. He’s shied from it, buried himself in isolation.)  
  
The guard takes the card and excuses himself inside the building.  
  
Jack puts his hands back into his pockets.  
  
(He’s stayed in Japan without telling STARISH. It was just too much to be on another continent, but too little to come back with nothing but his heart. He’s making himself a life, here, but one that is easy to pick up and move. He knows that he would drop it in an instant if Jinguuji asked him to follow. He’s not really that embarrassed about it anymore.)  
  
The guard is gone for a long moment. Jack remains, making polite conversation with one of the other guards by the door. The fans in line don’t pay him much mind.  
  
(He emails Jinguuji, but they only contact each other once every few days, if that. It’s rare that Jinguuji sends him pictures or anything more than _I hope you’re well_ , and it’s rarer that Jack sends pictures of himself in reply.)  
  
The guard returns, hands Jack his ID card.  
  
“This way, sir,” he says, and holds the door open. “Take the first right that’s open to you.”  
  
(This is the last show before the band goes back to the Academy grounds to prepare for the next set of projects.)  
  
“Thanks,” says Jack, and steps inside. The door shuts behind him. His footsteps echo on the waxed tile.  
  
(This is the last chance Jack might get to see them for a long while.)  
  
He doesn’t make it past the turn before he sees Jinguuji, standing in jeans and a t-shirt, looking cowed.  
  
And then, Jinguuji smiles.  
  
“You _asshole!_ ”  
  
Jack lets Jinguuji come to him, lets Jinguuji punch him in the chest and then embrace him.  
  
“Why didn’t you tell me you’d be here?”  
  
Jinguuji smells just like Jack remembers, cologne and skin and laundry detergent. His arms around Jack’s shoulders and neck are unafraid. He’s almost as tall as Jack, but leaner.  
  
“I just,” begins Jack, bringing his hands up to rest on Jinguuji’s back. Jinguuji pulls away to look at him, squeezing the back of Jack’s neck. And Jack, now, is weak. He bends under the pressure, bows his head until he can feel Jinguuji’s bangs against his forehead, can feel the soft percussion of Jinguuji saying his name.  
  
“Jack.” Jinguuji’s tone is surprised.  
  
Jack jerks backward, even as his fingers catch on Jinguuji’s shirt. He clears his throat. “I. Thought you might like the surprise.”  
  
Jinguuji takes a breath, his hands moving to the sides of Jack’s neck to hold him. “Jack— ”  
  
“Bukhar-san?” cries Aijima.   
  
Jinguuji lets go and steps back like Jack might burn him. His posture is relaxed and easy as ever, but he’s well out of Jack’s reach. He laughs. “Yeah, he came to surprise us.”  
  
Aijima jogs down the hall to them. “That’s wonderful! I’m so glad to see you!”  
  
Jack finds a smile. “I’m glad to see you too.”  
  
And then he’s being led to the green room, a flurry of last-minute food and water bottles, costumes hung neatly in preparation for the show, and the rest of STARISH. Aijima announces Jack to rather vocal surprise, and Jinguuji bumps Jack on his way back into the room.  
  
“Listen, Bukhar-san, we’ve got to get ready but you’re welcome to watch from backstage,” says Aijima.  
  
“I really just came to say hello,” says Jack, still reeling from getting too close to Jinguuji. He didn’t know what had come over him to be so reckless, when Jinguuji was just greeting someone who might be called an old friend.  
  
“No, no, you absolutely must stay,” says Aijima, waving his hand like the notion could be swatted like a fly. “Have you gotten to see our show?”  
  
“There’s a place for family members,” says Ichinose mildly. “It is more comfortable than being in the stands, certainly.”  
  
Ittoki nods. “And it’s easier on the ears, too, if that’s what you’re worried about. You’ll be behind the speakers.”  
  
“You can have some of my earplugs,” says Kurusu.   
  
Jack has the same surreal feeling of being swept up in a tide as he had the last time all seven of them came together around him. “Ah. Thank you,” he manages.  
  
“We’ll have time to catch up afterward,” says Jinguuji offhandedly. He’s pulling out of his shirt and laying it over the rack of costumes nearest him. “If you’ve got the time.”  
  
Jack chews his tongue, but nods. “Yes. I - actually I have plenty of time.”  
  
“What a nice surprise,” says Shinomiya, laughing. “Then let’s put on a good show, okay?”  
  
“If you wouldn’t mind, Bukhar-san, we’ve got to get ready,” says Hijirikawa.  
  
Jinguuji says, “Aw, let him stay. C’mere, Jack, my zipper sticks anyway.”  
  
Hijirikawa’s expression hardens, but Jack skirts him and heads for Jinguuji. “Oh, does it really,” he murmurs, slotting himself into some of the only empty space left in the room.  
  
Jinguuji just smiles. “Shut your mouth and help me with this. I haven’t forgiven you yet.”  
  
Jinguuji’s zipper works perfectly. The costume closes over his skin with nothing more than a tug, but the backs of Jack’s knuckles brush the freckles between Jinguuji’s shoulders on the way up.   
  
“Huh,” says Jinguuji, rolling out his shoulders. “Must have been a different one. Well. I won’t make you step in on the quick changes.”  
  
He looks over his shoulder at Jack, and his expression softens. “You _are_ staying after, right?”  
  
Jack lets out a breath. “To beg forgiveness?” he asks, because he’s already on the verge of apologizing.  
  
It makes Jinguuji smile. “Something like that, yeah.”  
  
Hijirikawa says, “Jinguuji.” It prompts Jinguuji to turn away from Jack, and from that moment forward he’s just about as useful as a piece of furniture in the corner. He watches as STARISH changes into their first outfits of the show, as coordinators file in to gel hair and check the costumes for fit. The room becomes impossibly more crowded, until all of the handlers leave and the boys come together, bowing their heads in a last prayer for the show to go well.  
  
And then they’re leaving for sound check, and Jack is taken to an area backstage that is relatively out of the way. He can’t see the whole stage except on a monitor hung behind the curtain. He can sit, though, and listen to sound check, and watch the techs run through lighting and camera movements.   
  
It’s like being a stone in a flowing river, or a comb in a hive. People move around him, hardly acknowledging him if at all, in pursuit of a singular goal.   
  
There was once a time that Jack would be at the head of such a swarm, coming up against another in battle.  
  
There was once a time that Jack watched that swarm move on without him, from the safety of a ship in flight.  
  
He’s outside it, here, neither directing nor drowning. Still, it makes something under his skin itch, and he keeps his eyes on the monitor, on the way STARISH run through their paces.  
  
And then STARISH are leaving, moving to the rigs that will deposit them onstage, running through technical checks while the fans start to flood in. The camera isn’t turned toward the crowd, but Jack can hear the low roar as they come, can feel it building like an animal in its own right.  
  
By the time they start screaming, Jack has been asked politely not to leave the chair. The screaming doesn’t stop; Jack doesn’t move. Instead, he watches the dark monitors and waits for the house lights to come down. He can hear the fans calling out the name of the band and little rhyming chants. When the smoke machines and lights start up, they scream impossibly louder and Jack’s glad to have earplugs from Kurusu to slide into his ears.  
  
The show begins.  
  
Jack resolutely does not think about the air that Jinguuji breathed between them.  
  
STARISH sings and dances, consummate professionals to a man.  
  
The flame bursts from Jack’s chest, just as it always has. It’s so warm. He’d forgotten. It’s so warm.  
  
He presses his hand over his chest to hold the flame, can barely see it sparking in every color, so consumed is he by the orange glow. It warms him through his body, down his limbs, roots him to the floor. And at the same time he feels so light, an almost floating lightness, buoyed on their harmonies.  
  
He can’t lie to himself. It’s the low silk of Jinguuji’s voice that gets him, that keeps the fire in his heart from guttering out.  
  
Jack stays in that chair and cradles the fire like Rei once had, like it’s a fragile, precious bird that might any second fly.  
  
The show ends.  
  
Jack remains, holding to the last vestiges of warmth.  
  
He doesn’t know how long he’s there, long enough for security to tell him he needs to move. He makes his body rise and walk toward the door. He’d promised to stay, but he has no idea where to go. The way to the green room is mobbed with coordinators, the way out is mobbed with fans, and Jack feels too unsteady to brave either one.  
  
A firm grip on the back of his shirt hauls him into a supply closet. The door clicks shut after him.  
  
Jinguuji presses his back to the door and whispers, “Have a good time?”  
  
Jack can feel shelves digging into his own back. Jinguuji has changed back into street clothes, but he’s a sweaty mess, his hair clinging to his face. The fluorescent lighting in the closet doesn’t do him any favors, highlighting how flushed he is, the flyaways in his hair.   
  
He’s beautiful.  
  
“Yeah,” breathes Jack.  
  
“Shh,” whispers Jinguuji. “Or we’ll get caught.”  
  
And then Jinguuji’s mouth is on his and Jack forgets to protest. That this is the worst possible idea, that they’re in a supply closet with the lights on and half of Jinguuji’s management just outside. That Jack’s old and worn and exhausted and has nothing to offer him but guilt.  
  
Jinguuji’s mouth is on his and he’s burning hot, desperate, pressing kiss after kiss. Jinguuji holds the back of his neck like Jack might somehow pull away, when it’s all Jack can do to hold on. He wraps his arms around Jinguuji, can’t seem to get his hands to stop stroking Jinguuji’s sides, holding his back.  
  
At the first electric touch of Jinguuji’s tongue, Jack makes a soft sound.  
  
“Shh, shh,” soothes Jinguuji, and covers Jack’s mouth again.  
  
Jack cradles Jinguuji’s head, fingers catching sweaty tangles, and loses himself. Jinguuji can’t obey his own rules, keeps making deep, breathy noises for Jack to swallow.  
  
Outside, there’s Shinomiya’s laugh, too close.  
  
Jack pulls back, trying to catch his breath. Jinguuji peppers his jaw with kisses, soft and insistent.  
  
“Ren,” Jack whispers. “Ren.”  
  
Outside, Kurusu says, “I’m so excited to sleep in my _own bed._ ”  
  
Jinguuji reaches behind himself and blindly fumbles the light off. He stays pressed close to Jack, breathing against his neck. In the light filtering in from the crack in the door, they are painted in faint, deep grey.  
  
“Ren,” Jack whispers, as close to his ear as he can. “They’re going to be looking for you. Aren’t they.”  
  
“Told them I’d gone to find you. Catching up,” whispers Jinguuji. His cheek is soft against Jack’s. “Said I might be late.”   
  
Jack can’t mistake his tone. “Jesus, Ren,” he breathes, sounding almost reverent.  
  
Jinguuji pulls him down into another kiss. Jack follows, resolve waning. Jinguuji molds their bodies together and Jack presses into it to keep the shelves from digging into his back. Jinguuji is so warm, so warm.  
  
There is nothing for it but to wait them out. If either of them were to step out of a dark supply closet it would raise eyebrows. No, now, they have to wait. Jinguuji works his hand up under Jack’s shirt and Jack pulls his head back, hard, to get at his throat. Jinguuji’s nails scrape over Jack’s stomach.  
  
This is the most idiotic, impulsive thing they could possibly do and Jack feels so alive.  
  
Jack presses his tongue to Jinguuji’s pulse just to feel it race. The heat of Jinguuji’s hand on his stomach disappears; Jinguuji has to cover his mouth. Jack scrapes his teeth over Jinguuji’s skin to make him shudder. Jinguuji clutches at Jack’s shoulder. Jack pulls his hair again and Jinguuji makes a tortured, soft sound.  
  
Action, reaction. In his arms, Jinguuji is responsive and brilliant and more essential than air. Jack wants nothing more than to mark him, to bite hard, to feel him go stiff and shaky.  
  
Jack stops, pulls back. He can’t. They’ll be caught.   
  
Jinguuji’s hand leaves his mouth, tracing questioning fingers over his neck. But there is no bruise.  
  
Carefully, Jack reins himself in. He slides his hands to Jinguuji’s hips, pushes to get some space between them.  
  
Jinguuji catches the hint, wrapping his hands around Jack’s wrists. For a long moment, the only sound between them is their breathing. Jinguuji doesn’t let go, but it’s clear he’s restraining them both. Jack can’t tell which of them might need it more.   
  
His hands are hot as brands. The air is thick with their breath, with the smell of leftover sweat.  
  
Slowly, finger by finger, Jinguuji lets go. He turns, pressing his face to the door to peer through the crack.  
  
Jack grasps Jinguuji by the waist, pulls him back. Into his ear, he whispers, “I’ll go first.”  
  
Jinguuji presses back against him for a brief moment, then shifts so Jack can maneuver past him. Jack swallows at the brush of Jinguuji’s body, but he takes his place by the door, curling his hand around the knob. With careful slowness, he edges the knob around and inches the door open.  
  
The hall isn’t empty. He shuts the door as slowly and carefully as he can, then shakes his head.  
  
Jinguuji sighs. In the sliver of light from the door, he looks wryly amused and not in the least apologetic. He reaches up and starts running his fingers through his hair, trying to smooth it.  
  
Jack finds he doesn’t feel apologetic, either. Jinguuji looks better mussed. He straightens his shirt and fixes his own hair, though Jinguuji did little more than ruffle the ends. He listens at the door, waiting for the dull roar to die down.  
  
Jinguuji leans in. “There’s a bathroom down the way,” he whispers. “Meet me there.”  
  
Jack turns to respond, but Jinguuji is too close and steals another kiss. Jack can’t help but sigh and reciprocate.  
  
Jinguuji pulls away. Jack tries the door again, stealthily as he can. The coast is clear, if only for a second. He steps out and shuts the door, heading for the bathroom.  
  
In the light, Jack’s reflection looks flushed and giddy. There’s a smile at the edges of his mouth that he can’t quite control, a hunger in his look. He splashes his face with cold water as he waits for Jinguuji. He straightens his hair again, wipes at his mouth like there’s a mark there.  
  
Jinguuji enters not long after, scanning the bathroom for any other occupants.  
  
It’s empty, except for Jack. Jinguuji bumps their shoulders together and says, “Which hotel?”  
  
Jack shakes his head. “I’m renting.”  
  
Jinguuji gapes at him, hurt flashing across his face. “What the hell? Okay, seriously, what the _hell,_ Jack?”  
  
“I.” Jack pauses, turns to Jinguuji so he’s not looking at his reflection. “I didn’t know what to say.”  
  
“You didn’t think I’d want to know you’d moved back? How long have you been here?” asks Jinguuji, still frowning.  
  
Jack shakes his head. He has a hundred responses, but none of them seems right. How could he tell Jinguuji that he needed to center himself first, that it wasn’t about Jinguuji at all but about his own weakness? And yet, Jinguuji is closing off, the longer Jack stays quiet. Looking like he regrets it.  
  
Jack says, “I want you too much.”  
  
It sounds bald and vulgar, and it echoes against the tile.  
  
Jinguuji’s expression goes sharp. He says, “Yeah, say that like it’s a bad thing again.”  
  
Jack winces. “Ren—”  
  
“No. Not here. I’ll listen to you but we’re going to your place and - and.” Jinguuji rakes a hand over his hair. “And fuck you, Jack.”  
  
Jack wants to tell Jinguuji that this is _precisely_ why it’s a bad idea. But he nods, and Jinguuji straightens, pulling on a smirk like a shield. Hollowly, Jack follows Jinguuji through the building and outside into the warm night, to a nice, dark car. He tells the driver his address, settles into the backseat. It’s familiar and foreign at once, with the tense weight of Jinguuji next to him.  
  
Jinguuji says, “D’you have work tomorrow, Jack?”  
  
Jack fights the way Jinguuji’s light tone makes him want to shrivel. He keeps his voice conversational as best he can. The driver can hear them, and even if he’s paid for discretion, Jack has no doubt their every word is overheard. “Not exactly. I sell carvings online, so I don’t have set hours.”  
  
“That must be nice. I didn’t know you’re an artist,” says Jinguuji, in the voice he uses on interviewers.  
  
“That’s going too far,” says Jack, swallowing the rock in his throat. “I’m just doing it to keep myself busy.”  
  
Jinguuji tilts his head, resting his cheek on his fist. “I’d like to see them. These things you make. Do you have any at your place?”   
  
“One or two, yeah,” says Jack softly.   
  
Jinguuji smiles, all mild, polite interest. “I’m looking forward to it.”  
  
Jack turns away, looking out the window. He feels sick, like maybe opening the door and hitting the ground rolling would be worth it. The nice coat he wears would shield him at least a little, keep asphalt and gravel from sticking into his shoulders and back. He could put his arms up over his face, keep his knees tucked, maybe be able to stand afterward.   
  
His apartment building looks so cold when they arrive, gray and impersonal. Jack watches Jinguuji dismiss the driver with a smile, looking for all the world like a young man intent on catching up with an old friend. Still, Jinguuji gets off the street quickly before he’s recognized.  
  
Jack lets him in. Jinguuji is so out of place in Jack’s empty apartment. He takes in the bare walls and the bed made with hospital corners and the closed closet. He takes a breath, shoulders expanding and then sagging.  
  
He says, “I’m not playing around, you know?”  
  
Jack takes off his coat. “Okay.”  
  
“I’m not in a position to. Has anyone told you?” Jinguuji turns, his hands on his hips.  
  
Jack lays his coat over his only chair and sinks into it. “About what?”   
  
“The contract I’m under. That _we’re_ all under.” Jinguuji runs a hand over his face. His sentences are clipped and flat. “Prohibits relationships. Specifically says not to fall in love. At first, we thought it was because, you know. Co-ed boarding school, can’t be an idol if you’re an unwed parent, that sort of shit. Can’t smile for the camera after a breakup. You lose focus.” He looks Jack over, rolling out his shoulders. Actively trying to keep himself from getting smaller. “You have to have focus.”  
  
Jack, stunned, says, “Wait, it’s a _clause_ in your contract?”  
  
Jinguuji blinks, then laughs. “You didn’t know. Now you do, I guess. It’s not exactly a secret at the Agency. Little unorthodox, maybe, but.” He shrugs.  
  
Jack sits back in the chair. “And you signed it.”  
  
“Can you blame me?” asks Jinguuji softly. “Protection. A built-in excuse. Kept my ex-girlfriend off of me, let me tell you.” He steps in closer, bending so his face is level with Jack’s. “But I’ve already broken my contract for you.”  
  
“I never asked you to,” breathes Jack. It’s a battle not to reach for him, when every cell in his body is aching.  
  
“So tell me if you mean it. I’m not going to break it again if you don’t mean it,” says Jinguuji, through his teeth. It’s impossible to read whether he’s angry or hopeful, but in the tremors in his lips Jack can see a need as rough as his own.  
  
Jack swallows. “Tell me what to do, so I don’t get you into trouble.”  
  
Jinguuji puts his hands on Jack’s knees. “What would you do?”  
  
“Just. Tell me,” says Jack.  
  
“Never tell anyone. Never get caught. Be a secret. Could you do that?” Jinguuji leans in, his expression tight. “Wouldn’t see you more than a couple of times a month, sometimes less. Sometimes more, if we’re lucky. And we’d be hiding, the whole time.” He lets out a slow, shaky breath. “Always hiding.”  
  
Jack reaches up. He smooths his hands over Jinguuji’s face, fingertips tracing the furrow of his brow. “Ren.”  
  
“Or we just get it over with tonight,” says Jinguuji, closing his eyes. “Because this kind of surprise isn’t the kind I like. You can’t just… you can’t just not tell me that you changed _continents._ ”  
  
“I’m sorry,” says Jack. He holds Jinguuji’s face in both hands. This precious, precious face. “I’m sorry.”  
  
Jinguuji stays, but his voice is firm. “So what?”  
  
Jack traces Jinguuji’s cheekbones with his thumbs. Jinguuji digs his fingers into Jack’s thighs. “When we met,” Jack begins, and Jinguuji’s hands relax. “You… you know how I was. You know, I was only there to help Rei. And I was living in the past.”  
  
Jack swallows, feeling the too-light bones of another man under his hands, hearing the clang of a body against steel lockers, his own voice begging Rei _not to go._  
  
“And I didn’t. I couldn’t stop, then. I couldn’t until he was really gone.” Jinguuji winces under Jack’s hands. Jack breathes, “I thought you were a distraction. I needed… focus.”  
  
Jinguuji laughs, wry and short. Jack looks into his eyes, somehow warmed. “I forgot I wasn’t the only person who’d lost someone.”  
  
“Jack,” says Jinguuji, shaking his head. He straightens, standing upright. Jack lets his hands fall.  
  
“Ren. You kept me present. You kept me… you kept me human. But I was afraid of getting, uh, obsessed. I mean. I just wanted you to sing, all of the time. And when you weren’t singing, I wanted to talk to you, I wanted to be around you.” He smooths his hair back, away from his face. “Which was not. Conducive. To anything approaching normalcy, really.”  
  
Jinguuji laughs. “Normal. We’re back to normal again!” He steps back, sits on the end of Jack’s bed, leaning forward on his elbows. “You wanted normal.”  
  
Jack covers his face with both hands. “Yes! Yes, I did. No magic, no ghosts, no —”  
  
“No Muses,” finishes Jinguuji.  
  
Jack drops his hands. “Ren.”  
  
“I’m not surprised.” Jinguuji tilts his head, a flippant smile growing on his face. “It’s not like I haven’t wanted to avoid the hallucinations, myself. But you’re talking about something else.”  
  
“When you sang, I was warm,” says Jack, looking down at his knees. “And you were willing - you’d offered to do it for me. Because you’re kind, maybe you felt sorry for me.”   
  
“Jack—”  
  
“But I couldn’t impose on you like that. And I… that’s why I never. Talked. To you. I had to be, you know.” Jack thinks the word and then smiles a little, because he sounds like an idiot. “Sober.”  
  
Jinguuji stares. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why are you back now?”  
  
Jack chooses to answer the second question rather than the first. “Because I was hoping I was myself enough to be your friend.”  
  
“So. Are you?” Jinguuji asks, his teeth sunk into his lip.  
  
“I. I don’t want you to sing for me, Ren. I just want you.”  
  
“Sounds like a little more than friendship to me, Jack,” says Jinguuji.   
  
Jack smiles a little. “I know what I want. But I - if I was going to come back, I had to be able to just be your friend.”  
  
Jinguuji raises an eyebrow. “Can you?”  
  
“I was going to give it my best shot,” says Jack, when they both know the answer is _not anymore._  
  
“What do you want?” When Jack looks up, Jinguuji clarifies, “You said you know what you want. You’re really going to do this, you’re gonna be serious about me?”  
  
“Yeah. Yes.” Jack stops. He pushes himself up. “You trusted me with those pictures, right? You never saw them anywhere else.”  
  
Jinguuji gets to his feet as well, crosses the distance between them. “I didn’t.”  
  
“I’m serious,” says Jack. “I’m serious.”  
  
Jinguuji smiles, his expression soft. “I believe you,” he says. He nudges their noses together to tip Jack’s face.  
  
Jack melts into the kiss, relief washing over him. Jinguuji’s mouth is welcoming, but so briefly given he’s pulling back before Jack can really get his eyes closed.  
  
Jinguuji says, “I need to be back before five.”  
  
“In the morning?” mumbles Jack, chasing Jinguuji’s mouth.  
  
He gets a laugh and a low, “Mm-hm,” for his trouble. Jinguuji doesn’t let himself be caught, keeps leaning back until he gets the space to say, “And I need a shower - oh,” while Jack mouths at his jaw. “Jack. Come on, I’m disgusting.”  
  
“Not really,” murmurs Jack, nosing up under Jinguuji’s hair to get at his earlobe. He drags his tongue over Jinguuji’s soft skin, and yeah, he’s salty with dried sweat but Jack’s loath to let him go. Until, that is, his tongue finds a pocket of dried hair gel and he makes a disgusted noise at the biting, plastic flavor.  
  
Jinguuji laughs, slipping out of his grasp. “May I use your shower, Jack?” he asks, all schoolboy innocence.  
  
Wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, Jack says, “Yeah, of course.”  
  
Jinguuji, clearly doing his level best not to keep laughing, crosses Jack’s apartment like he owns it, digging Jack’s only other clean towel out of the closet. He says, “Thanks,” and shuts Jack out of the bathroom.  
  
The quiet rush of water follows. Jack does mental math. Five in the morning, minus the drive to the Agency grounds, that gives them only a few hours. Part of Jack wants nothing more than to curl around Jinguuji - around _Ren_ and sleep until they have a life together. Like waiting could bring them to the right arrangement. A little place, bigger than this one, maybe, with plants in the windows and sunshine in the morning and places for Ren to lounge, and practice, and sing. A space for Jack to work in, to carve and sand and stain and polish.  
  
Jack does mental math. Ren had a girlfriend, before his contract. How young was he, then? And how experienced, now? For all of his flirting, Jack could scare him, could push him too far. Jack knows what he wants. But Ren, Ren is so much younger.  
  
Cursing himself for a fool, Jack changes into pajamas. A soft pair of shorts, an undershirt, both worn so long they’ve given up their color. Most of Jack’s underclothes, now, are blue-grey or white, faded like his skin. His bed is dressed in worn grey, receding even against plain white walls. He’s never made a home for himself that was filled with color; he drifts back to grey over and over. It’s industrial, it’s somehow comforting. Jack sinks onto the edge of the bed, but stays sitting up, his weight on his hands.  
  
Ren emerges, gold and orange and steaming. Absently thumbing at his phone, he says, “I just left my clothes in there. That’s alright with you, yeah?”  
  
All thoughts of sleep dissipate. Jack’s attention is hung on the towel tied around Ren’s hips.  
  
It takes no more than five steps to cross the room, steps that Ren takes without hesitation. He stops, knees brushing Jack’s, and raises an eyebrow. “Unless you want me to move them?”  
  
Jack shouldn’t respond like a dumbstruck teenager, should be able to look up at Ren and say, “Leave them,” without it creaking at the edges. If he’s looking for nerves, Ren doesn’t betray any, only sets his phone down on top of Jack’s tablet by the bedside. Ren slides into Jack’s lap like he’s meant to rest there.  
  
To steady him, Jack slides his hands up Ren’s thighs. Ren curls his hands around Jack’s wrists, but doesn’t stop him.  
  
“Scared?” he asks. Jack almost expects to hear a challenge in his tone, but for once Ren is entirely sincere. He sounds unsure.  
  
“You know what? Yeah,” says Jack, softly. “Who wouldn’t be, with you.”  
  
Before Ren can pull back, Jack grabs his hips. The bones fit perfectly against the curves of his palms. “I’m not going to be good at letting go.”  
  
“Is that a reason not to go for it? You said you could—” begins Ren.  
  
“You just asked if I was scared,” breathes Jack. “I’m scared.”  
  
Tentative, for all that he’s still in Jack’s lap, Ren lets go of Jack’s wrists. “Don’t ask a question you don’t want the answer to, huh?” he mumbles.  
  
Jack kneads at Ren’s hips. Ren must see something that reassures him in Jack’s expression, because he sighs and bends so their foreheads touch. And then he laughs.   
  
“Stop, that tickles.”  
  
Jack stills his hands, murmuring a wholly unapologetic, “Whoops.”  
  
“Uh huh,” says Ren, settling himself better with an experimental roll of his hips. Jack’s grip goes tight at the pressure on his groin, sudden heat through his shorts, and Ren gives up a shaky, pleased, “Yeah.”  
  
It’s enough to get Jack to move, to pull Ren in harder and kiss him, following Ren’s voice into his mouth. And Ren’s rocking, grinding their hips together slow and hot, his hands catching tight on Jack’s shoulders. For all that he’s confident, though, he’s clumsy, and soon Ren does nothing but pant openmouthed into Jack’s neck. Charming, Jack thinks. Sweet.  
  
“Ren,” he says, “Ren, here.” He grabs the backs of Ren’s thighs and pulls him upward, kissing Ren’s collarbone as he raises him. Ren obliges, rocking up onto his knees, though his hips keep rolling into thin air, pleading. Jack gets his hands under the towel, gets his hands firm on Ren’s ass and squeezes, nipping at Ren’s stomach. The towel falls, and Ren is laughing breathlessly, and Jack lets Ren fumble with it in favor of tucking his nose into the soft hollow at the top of Ren’s thigh. Ren smells like damp skin and soap and he’s hard, his cock barely brushing Jack’s cheek.  
  
Shaky-fingered, Ren pets through Jack’s hair. His lip is caught between his teeth and, weakly, he releases it to say, “‘M gonna fall.”  
  
Jack scrapes his nails down Ren’s thighs, lets Ren slide back down, tracing the skin Ren gives him with tongue and teeth. He bites at Ren’s chest, soothes his tongue over a nipple, holds Ren up when his legs go weak. And Ren is moaning, soft little sounds that slip out with his breath. Jack gets one hand between them, finally tending to Ren’s cock. It’s so hot in his hand, so easy for Jack to catch and stroke.  
  
Hissing, Ren arches, rocking into Jack’s fist. He mumbles half-swears and Jack’s name, and attacks Jack’s mouth with his own. He kisses sloppy and wet, so needy that Jack forgets any hope of drawing it out. Jack kneads Ren’s ass to guide him, sucks Ren’s tongue into his mouth, thumbs the head of his cock to make him come, keening, over Jack’s hand.  
  
He isn’t expecting Ren to shiver, to come down slow and catch his breath without ever breaking the kiss. He’s panting, but his mouth never stops. When Jack tips his head to get some air, to try and gentle Ren down a little, Ren stays close, his eyes half-lidded. He’s still moving, languid rolls of his hips, murmuring Jack’s name against his mouth.  
  
Jack gives Ren’s dick a gentle squeeze before letting go. He wipes his hand on his shirt, and Ren gets the hint, leaning back so Jack can pull it off over his head. Before he can tend to Ren, though, he’s stopped by Ren’s hands on his chest.  
  
Ren’s staring at him like he’s a gift. Like fucking Christmas morning.  
  
“Jack,” he breathes. His gaze tracks down Jack’s body, to the poor job his shorts are doing of concealing how desperately hard he is. Jack shivers, suddenly cold without Ren pressed against him.   
  
Ren digs his teeth into his lip, lifting his head to give Jack a dizzy smile. “Jack, baby. Let’s get these off.”   
  
And he’s up on his knees, then shifting so Jack can lift up and get his shorts down. Ren loses patience when they’re at mid-thigh and slides back over Jack’s legs to pin him, humming in his throat. “Good, there’s good,” he breathes, eyes flicking up to Jack’s face. With the patience and languor of someone who’s already gotten to come, Ren traces his fingertips over the head of Jack’s cock and purrs when Jack gasps.  
  
His fingers are warm and long and teasing, his legs clamped tight down over Jack’s thighs to keep him still. He’s bent, watching his own hands like Jack is precious under them. Every twitch, every breath Jack gives up for him, Ren answers with wrecked praise. “There, yeah, look at you,” and “That’s it, you’re so good,” and “Fuck, Jack, yes, God,” and Jack feels flayed and vulnerable, like Ren could reach into his chest and swallow his heart.  
  
Jack fists his hands in the sheets on either side of Ren’s knees. “Ren,” he begs, and doesn’t know what for. But Ren is there, and solid.  
  
“Yeah, come on. Show me,” says Ren, and Jack is helpless to deny him. He comes with a shudder, and all the while Ren watches him with wide eyes and slack jaw. “Oh. Oh, baby, oh God,” Ren mumbles, but Jack can only hiss through his teeth when Ren doesn’t stop stroking. Like he could get Jack to come again, so soon, like it’d kill him to stop.  
  
“Ren. Ren,” he manages, catching at Ren’s wrist.  
  
“Yeah,” says Ren, low, “just. Let me,” and kisses him. As if Jack, somehow, might say no. The kiss is deep and open and slow. Jack tries to catch his breath, his bearings, but Ren just presses him down to the bed with sticky fingers on his belly.   
  
Jack goes, leaning back on his elbows, but catches Ren’s hair before he can dive in again. “Hey. We can do better,” he says. He waits, watching Ren’s eyebrows raise. After a moment of quiet, he smiles a little. “Get up.”  
  
Hissing on unsteady legs, Ren does. Jack goes for Ren’s discarded towel, still damp, and wipes him down before he can protest. Ren makes a face, swaying with Jack’s touch.  
  
“Feet asleep, huh?” says Jack, not unsympathetic. He drags the towel over his own stomach and shivers at his own sensitivity.  
  
“Didn’t feel like it had been that long,” says Ren, and it’s clear he’s aware of the innuendo when he grins.   
  
Jack pitches the towel in the general direction of the bathroom and finally manages to get untangled from his shorts. “Get in the bed, Ren,” he says.   
  
Only once they’re both under the sheet, Ren draped over him, does Ren yawn. Even with the light on, Ren tucks his face into Jack’s armpit and drifts off.   
  
Under other circumstances, Jack has laid awake under his partners, or curled around them, or on the opposite side of the bed. He’s watched them leave him, get into the shower or just back into their clothes. Sometimes familiar, sometimes friendly, sometimes ashamed, with the promise that they’ll never speak of it again.   
  
But here, now, in his bare apartment with summer chasing the last of frost, Jack drops into sleep to grab what he can. Ren is under his arm, and perfect, and whole, and until the alarm Ren is his.  
  


* * *

  
  
The sound of the alarm.  
  
A kiss to the corner of his mouth.   
  
Jack tries to sit up, gets pushed back down.   
  
Morning breath.  
  
“I’ll text you.”  
  
The door clicks shut.  
  


* * *

  
  
Jack had, perhaps foolishly, hoped that once he’d worked things out with Ren he’d be less prone to daydreaming about him. More than anything, the reverse is true.   
  
Before leaving, Ren had stolen one of his shirts and a pair of his boxers, if the remaining dirty clothes on his bathroom floor are any indication. The thought fills Jack’s chest with warmth, though he reminds himself it’s only practical. He wouldn’t want to put on dirty clothes after a shower.  
  
Jack cleans up his apartment, which just means throwing the towel, and their clothes into the hamper. But Ren left laundry, which means Ren is coming back. Ren is. Ren.  
  
Jack’s phone chimes.  
  
 _Good morning, Sunshine._  
  
A picture of Ren with a coffee cup under his chin, bags under his eyes and a smile.  
  
Ren.  
  
Jack finds he’s smiling, too. He runs a hand through his hair.  
  
 _Good morning to you._


End file.
